[FRIAM] alternative response

Tue Jun 16 23:58:52 EDT 2020

Hi, Gary, 

Now My Man Peirce was allergic to determinism.  He liked to say that if the world was not as random as it could be, it was pretty damned close.  When he said things like this, I think he was thinking about relations between events. Here’s a quick exposition of that point of view.  

Let experience be as random as it could possibly be; indeed, Peirce thinks that experience is approximately that random. Considering all the events that are going on at any one moment -- the ticking of the clock, the whuffing of the wind in the eaves, the drip of the faucet, the ringing of the telephone, the call from the seven-year-old upstairs who cannot find his shoes, the clunking in the heating pipes as the heat comes on, the distant sound of the fire engine passing the end of the street, the entry of the cat through the pet door, the skitter of mouse-feet behind the wainscoting -- most will be likely unrelated to the fact that the egg timer just went off. Perhaps not all, however. Perhaps the cat anticipates cleaning up the egg dishes. Perhaps the same stove that is boiling the egg water has lit a fire in the chimney. But whatever relations we might discover amongst all these events, we can find an infinite number of other temporally contiguous events that are not related to them. Thus, as Peirce says, events are just about as random as anybody could care them to be.

I see that I have begged my own question of what randomness IS.  But the rarity that any one event in the universe implies the occurance of any other.  

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2020 8:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] alternative response

If I understand correctly, random in the statistical sense, is just a distribution. Random, in the colloquial sense, does not exist. All state is all determined by physical laws. That’s of course without regard to quantum mechanics. But my beliefs about such things were forged before quantum theory had been invented, or at least before I had heard of it. It does now temper my beliefs with a healthy dose of uncertainty. 

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 9:16 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Hi, Gary, 

So, am I right to guess that wearing that hat implies a position on the meaning of the word, “random”?  How does that go?  

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2020 5:27 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] alternative response

Putting on my determinist hat (which I usually wear), I would say that the event of the neighbor passing by your study 

was pre-determined by the forces established at the instant of the Big Bang. As is everything else.

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 4:59 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Is the question whether it was "pre-determined?" Or is the question whether
it was predetermined by Charles??   I have a neighbor who passes my study
window every afternoon at 4pm with his very floppy cocker spaniel.  Is that
event predetermined by the dog (who begs to go out at 3.30), by Scott (who
welcomes the distraction), by the clock (which he checks to keep the dog
honest), or ....

I know this because I used to set out for coffee every afternoon at that
time, and we would often meet on my doorstep and walk together a few paces
down the street.  Because of COVID I don't do that any more.  Did COVID
determine my change of behavior?  Or did I make a FREE choice.  

I think the freedom of free will is just an ideological matter.  Each of us
is supposed to be a master of our behavior and circumstances.  Indeed, in
some jurisdictions, you can be popped in the loony-bin for not being so.  In
which case, I think, the loony bin is where we all belong.  Or perhaps are? 

Anyway, Glen will accuse me of strawmanning again.  Forgive me.  I have been
tortured by dualists all my life, and now I am visiting my revengte on all
of you. 

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Jon Zingale
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2020 3:38 PM
To: friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] alternative response

An attempt to steelman via wingman:

The idea that Glen is proposing is to highlight a sweet spot in one's
experience where unfamiliarity competes with habit. Glen advocates for
bracketing questions of a prime mover or that which happens in pathological
limits. Instead, he wishes to constrain the scope of free will to a question
of free versus bound with respect to some arbitrary
component/scale/neighborhood (the free will zone). I will try not to fight
this as I still think of this interpretation of *free will* as being a
discussion of will, determined or not. For instance, I may be willful and
determined.
The value
I see in Glen's perspective is that we can develop a grammar for discussing
deliberate action, perhaps involving a Bayesian update rule to an otherwise
evaporative memory or local foresight. He is advocating to not concern
ourselves with whether or not Charles Bukowski was *predestined* to be a
drunk, but rather with determining where the *choice* to do otherwise may
have been.

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