[FRIAM] "Brown eggs are local eggs and local eggs are FRESH!"

Sun Aug 16 09:50:41 EDT 2020

Good choice.  Our statistical causal reasoning algorithms were based on
conditional independence relations (is A independent of B given C) which
are tested using covariance statistics.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, N

On Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 11:32 PM David Eric Smith <desmith at santafe.edu> wrote:

> “Covariance” is the term I see universally used in population genetics.
>
> If one is disappointed at merely using the mathematical label for the only
> relation that ever appears in the mathematics, then the question arises
> what else one wants from a categorization, if the categorization will
> always be quarantined outside the math that carries the consequences.
>
> We had this discussion for “interpretations of quantum mechanics”, and
> because Jon had some reasonable things to say about what one does want from
> such an interpretation, it seems appropriate to ask whether similar
> contributions should be sought here.
>
> Eric
>
>
> On Aug 16, 2020, at 2:23 PM, <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> <
> thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Frank,
>
> Well, yes, precisely.  And what would you call that relation?  It’s a very
> common relation, but I don’t seem to have a very good name for it.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,-XvvP7UQfTHLobknPzMP5r8sAfPOcnSiIH41MKyXIRnSha8tQabypuYpGtyJyuUrQ43mq5ul35krcYjQf9OGxU-TIT0otdUjvcSPqcuYnNFluqTJVHRoEp64TEFQ&typo=1>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 15, 2020 10:29 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] "Brown eggs are local eggs and local eggs are
> FRESH!"
>
> Nick,
>
> The toy seems to me to illustrate that one variable can be causally
> related to another (selected) and correlated to a third which is not
> causally connected to the third.
>
> Or something like that.  Am I close?
>
>
> Frank
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 10:04 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi, Eric,
>
> Nobody should treat my thoughts concerning epiphenomena, intension,
> extension, etc. as anything more than vaguely informed explorations.  But
> you know that.   I have struggled for years to understand what my
> colleagues mean by these terms and they constantly necker-cube for me, so
> to the extent that I  cannot usually be  relied to know what I am talking
> about, this is a particularly dangerous area for me.  In particular, I
> don’t think Sober uses the term, “epiphenomenon”, in his book, so I would
> not like to have my understanding of the term scraped off on him.  Calling
> it the device (see attachment) the Sober Epiphenomenator is probably all on
> me.
>
> My colleagues have warned me away from poking at this dungheap, but I am
> fascinated by it.  It just seems to me that underlying all this mess is a
> pretty simple idea, and I would like to clear it up, if only for myself.
> And it further seems to me that the Sober device, in its childlike
> simplity, might be a good place to start.
>
> I look forward to considering your economic example to see if it fits the
> template, if there is a template.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,PonvMB4fyRuVaaC2-W3oNqsyfAjTDa4rmfxhitGmQxJ-XHhde5J0t-oy1qTjj4FzZ-MNWu6TyVI6VMj6oS1bhnLzpPm5qT7evjTEDNDqYStS6PyAt-Qjm7s-WQ,,&typo=1>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *David Eric Smith
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 15, 2020 9:30 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] "Brown eggs are local eggs and local eggs are
> FRESH!"
>
> It is so interesting that, just as in the earlier discussions of emergence
> and probably others, Nick uses the word “epiphenomenal” in ways it would
> never occur to me to use it, and as far as I can tell quite exclusive of
> the only way it did ever occur to me to use it.  I guess DS Wilson (or
> Elliot Sober?) uses it the same way as Nick is using it, and I never looked
> up what was the canonical usage.
>
> But anyway…
>
> I had always used the term in reference to neoclassical economics (NE) and
> its treatment of preferences and institutions.  I had always said that NE
> treated institutions as epiphenomena of preferences.  By which I mean the
> following:
> 1. Even economists can’t simply pretend institutions don’t exist.
> 2. However, Arrow, Debreu, and McKenzie proved lovely existence theorems
> for optimal allocations from the competition of individual preferences, and
> the economists really really insist on remaining in the Garden of Eden of
> those existence proofs.
>
> What to do?
>
> 3. Acknowledge that all these names and descriptions of institutions do
> really point at things-in-the-world, but declare that economically those
> things don’t actually do any work or mean anything.  They are like
> constellations in the sky; patterns that can be seen from certain angles,
> as one looks at the _actual_ basis for economic behavior, which is
> individual preferences.
>
> That was what I had thought was captured in the characterization
> “epiphenomenal”.  But clearly I am using it as something of a gesture-word,
> and not something for which I am building a strict formal logic.  It is
> more an attempt to explain the patterns of choices and work by a group of
> people, and to impute a state of mind to them to explain those choices.
>
> The alternative to institutions as “epiphenomena” of preferences would be
> institutions that not only exist as patterns to be named, but as real
> things in the world that do essential work in determining what happens.
> They govern what actions are available to us, what knowledge we have to act
> on, what power or authority or roles, and on and on.  They define signaling
> systems (monetary units and physical monies, ownership claims, etc.) and
> provide the channels on which the signals are transmitted (contract law,
> taxation, etc.), and thus are the framework to operationally coordinate
> pretty-much everything we think of as constituting economic life.  Without
> them we would not have raw, competing complete preferences; we would
> largely cease to exist as economic agents.
>
> The usage isn’t entirely unlike Nick’s semiotic/intensional-extensional
> contrasts, but it seems to differ in the sense that, when I say the NE guys
> treat institutions as epiphenomena of preferences, the work that they want
> done would be the same whether done by preferences or by institutions.  So
> if they were to think of institutions as mattering, those would be
> contributing part of the mechanics of choice then not carried by
> preferences, whereas if they are epiphenomena they are like a kind of
> transparent window that preferences can be seen through, while the
> preferences carry all the weight.  Kind of like the bulk magnetization in a
> ferromagnet is not a “different” thing that “supervenes” on all the
> microscopic magnetic moments and forces them into coordination: rather the
> bulk magnetization is nothing more than a summary statistic for the
> microscopic magnetizations, and really and truly _nothing_ more or less
> than the aggregate of them, and hence an epiphenomenon of
> them-all-taken-together. In contrast, all of Nick’s epiphenomena are
> actual, independent, real properties, and the discussion then branches off
> in a different direction of who or what does or doesn’t consider them
> consequential.  That to me seems more of a contrast of salient vs.
> ancillary actual properties, rather than fundamental versus epi or purely
> apparitional phenomena.
>
> But who knows.  I guess it depends on what problem you want to solve, what
> count as useful categorizations.
>
> Eric
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 16, 2020, at 6:40 AM, <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> <
> thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The quote in the subject line was (is?) a slogan that Massachusetts egg
> farmers offered in Massachusetts shoppers trying to get them to buy their
> eggs. It came with a ditty which, if you call me up, I will happily sing
> for you.   The back story is that the factory egg producers in neighboring
> NY used chickens that produced white eggs.  Like as not, if you were eating
> a white egg in MA you were eating an egg that had been shipped in from NY,
> hence longer in transit.  So, if the campaign were successful, shoppers
> would seek out brown eggs because of their color.  Brownness in  eggs would
> be their cue for purchase. If the campaign worked, the freshness would
> become epiphenonmenal with respect to their selection criteria.  From the
> point of view of Massachusetts egg-producers, the brownness of the eggs was
> epiphenomenal.  All they cared about is whether the eggs sold in MA were
> from MA This would of course break down if NY farmers started using
> chickens that laid brown eggs or Massachusetts farmers started storing eggs
> before shipping them.
>
> At Friday’s meeting, my mentors urged me to get off the “epiphenomenon”
> kick.  I suppose I could instead use the language of semeiotics.  [Pause
> for moaning in the distance.]  In this case we could say that the producers
> were trying to make brownness a sign of value in eggs.  This works for two
> quite distinct reasons:  it works for the consumer because the brown is a
> sign of local and local is a sign of fresh; it works for the producers
> because brown is a sign of eggs that come from their farms.
>
> Instead of semiotic language, we could use the language of intension and
> extension.  [More anguished groans] The marketing campaign works  because
> although the intensions of the choices of the two agents are different,
> these intensions are both part of the extension of brown eggs in
> Massachusetts.
>
> Note also that the slogan is an example of powers and perils of
> abduction.  The sloganeer first abduces that brown eggs are local and from
> that category (local eggs) deduces that the eggs are fresh.  The two steps
> in the abduction/deduction process are
>
> *These eggs are brown; local eggs are brown; these eggs are local;*
> *Local eggs are fresh; these [brown] eggs are local; these [brown] eggs
> are fresh.  *
>
> The point (to me) is that there is a very simple thread underlying all of
> these ways of talking about natural selection phenomena.  Could all this
> baroque verbiage be reduced to a simple formula?
>
> Years ago I wrote a paper
> <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239787151_A_system_for_describing_bird_song_units>
>  that reduced the terminology of bird song down to three operations and 5
> levels of organization.  In short, the paper showed that while  scientists
> had been using several dozen terms, they had, along, only been talking
> about three different sorts of thing.  That is the sort of reduction I
> would like to do on all this talk of epiphenomena, intension, extension,
> function, purpose, cue, side-effect, spandrel, exaptation, blah, blah-blah,
> and blah-blah-blah.
>
> Thanks for allowing me to think in your space and on your time.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
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