[FRIAM] query and observation

Thu Sep 12 18:48:05 EDT 2019

So, you are late meeting the train to Albuquerque.  As you drive into the station, you see a train sitting at the platform, absolutely motionless.  You rush up to the conductor and demand to know, “Is this train going to Albuquerque?”  “No!” the Frank, conductor replies.  As you can plainly see, it is sitting here not going anywhere.”  Confused, you rush down to the other end of the car where there is another conductor, Nick and you ask the same question. “Yes,” Nick replies.  “Given what this train has been doing all day and how it is standing in the station, and the time of day, there is every reason to believe that this train is going to Albuquerque.  C’mon aboard!”  “Shouldn’t I ask the engineer first?” you ask.  “Well, you might.  He has a lot of experience with this train.  But the answer is so obvious that he might pull your leg, and you’ld miss the train.  Are you getting on, or not?. 

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 Frank Wimberly
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2019 5:59 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] query and observation

Straw man:

Nick:  People don't think, they only behave.

Frank:  You reached that conclusion by thinking.

Nick:  You presume to have observed my reaching the conclusion.

Frank:  I am certain your mind works like mine.

Nick:  How could you know that?  You are a Cartesian.

Frank:  And proud of it.

Nick:  People don't feel; they infer their feelings from their behavior.  They recognize hunger from eating or food seeking behavior.

Frank:  I know I'm hungry from feeling hungry.  I could feel hungry while totally still, with no observable behavior.

Nick:  No because...

Etc., etc....

No resolution to date.

-----------------------------------
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 Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 12:17 PM Steven A Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com> > wrote:

We love our "flocking" models but FRIAM is less of a 'birds-of-a-feather'  group than something much harder to similize.  It feels to me that some of our conversations are a bit flocky or schooly (rarely herdy) but others are more geophysical like flares or eruptions...  a good schoolyard "pileon" occasionally happens as well... and then there are... as we are now contemplating, the long dark-tea-times of our collective-soul.

On 9/12/19 10:04 AM, Gary Schiltz wrote:

FRIAM is such a strange beast. At times full of philosophical discourse that flies far above my head, other times full of irreverent inanities that defy categorization, and occasionally even with something to do with complexity. And then the periodic deafening silence that makes me realize just how much I would miss it if it were to go away. Long live FRIAM.

On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 10:45 AM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:

Frank, Dave, 

Well I AM tied up with relocation issues, so haven’t been paying close attention, but …

I just did a search in my inbox and there is nothing from FRIAM from 24 August on.  

I have always understood that the Friam-Owner. is like the wine pourer at a classical “symposium”,  more or less watering the wine to maintain the flow and quality of the conversation.  He won’t admit to it of course, but every once in a while He “shuts me off” from friam when He thinks I have become too … agitated?  I assume He is also gently modulating your contributions in the same way, as a beneficent god should.  I don’t know how He gets the time to do it, but nothing else could possibly explain the fact that sometimes our emails just go missing for a while.  So, I didn’t get alarmed when I stopped receiving FRIAM correspondence in late August.  I just assumed that the All Powerful Friam-Owner was giving me a rest.  

Thank you APF-O.  We love you and worship you.  

Nick 

Ps.  Let me know if you don’t get this message.  (};-\)

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 <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2019 8:02 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] query and observation

Dave,

The Friam list remains as you can see but is sort of a trickle.  I posted a couple of items about the Cooper/Colbert interview and something I can't remember but they weren't up to the high intellectual standard which engages you, Glen, Marcus, Nick, et al.  Glen did comment insightfully.  Nick will be back in Santa Fe soon; maybe the change in location will stimulate him.

Frank

-----------------------------------
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 Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 12:42 AM Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm <mailto:profwest at fastmail.fm> > wrote:

Hello All,

Traffic on the FRIAM list seems to have ground to a halt, from my reception point in Amsterdam - i.e. I have seen nothing for some time. Not in spam filter, so question is has the list trickled to a stop or just not making it across the Atlantic.?

Observation: an interesting coincidence arising from reading a new book, The Case Against Reality, How evolution hid the truth from our eyes, by Donald D. Hoffman, professor of cognitive science at UC Irvine. Main thesis is that what we perceive is but a constructed, via evolution,  "interface" and not a veridical perception of "Reality." 

Not a new idea but the evolution / survival / fittest being the ones that see the optimal interface instead of what is behind the interface is interesting.

Coincidence comes from simultaneously rereading Heidegger and Gadamer, and even some Peirce,  and seeing apparent parallels between "interface,: "interpretation," and "experience."  Feels like a lot of Nick's Monism convictions might be illuminated by looking at these works in juxtaposition.

dave west

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