[FRIAM] hidden

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Frank,

There are many things that you have experienced that I have not, and vv, but no value is added by calling these “inner.”  I can sort of go along with Glen’s gloss on “inside”, but when you metamorphose it to “inner”, I get antsy.  

 

But I think we have tilled this ground for all it is worth, for the moment.  

 

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 Frank Wimberly
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2020 8:02 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] hidden

 

Forget covariant tensors (again).  There was a beautiful, talented girl in my sixth grade class.  She could dance ballet, draw striking pictures, etc.  I thought of her occasionally over the decades.  When Google search became available I discovered that she was married to a celebrity.

 

When you say that my inner life isn't private, Nick, do you mean you could figure out her name given what I've just written?  As I think of her face, can you "see" it well enough to recognize her photo?

 

I just don't understand what you mean when you question that I have a private inner life.

 

Frank

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

 

On Mon, May 18, 2020, 7:47 PM Jon Zingale <jonzingale at gmail.com <mailto:jonzingale at gmail.com> > wrote:

Frank, Glen, Nick,

 

Glen writes:

`... in last week's Zoom, I mentioned to Jon (in response

to his query to Frank about RSA-encryption::mind) that I

think homomorphic encryption is a better analogy (to mind).`

 

Fully homomorphic encryption† was also the metaphor I originally

had in mind. In an effort to not complicate matters, I decided to focus

on the idea of public key encryption more generally. Thank you, Glen

for taking it the rest of the way. Because Glen, Nick and I appear to

differ on Frank's mind only in that we disagree about the way that

Frank's mind is public, I will attempt to switch sides and argue for

why his mind may be private.

 

Firstly, while we may only need to know some combination of

transformations which will allow us to know his mind, it may

be the case that those transformations are not accessible to

us. As an example and in analogy to computation, it may be the

case that we are not the kind of machines which can recognize

the language produced by a mind. While we as observers are

able to finite automata our way along observations of Frank,

his mind is producing context-free sentences, say. I don't

entirely buy this argument, but it also may be defendable.

As another example/analogy, we may be attempting to solve

a problem analogous to those geometric problems of Greek

antiquity††. It may take a psychological analog to Galois theory

before we understand exactly why we can't know Frank's mind.

 

Secondly, it may be that the encryption metaphor should

actually be something closer to hashing. A friend of mine

once said that rememberings were morphisms between

forgettings. We are often ok with the idea that memory is

lossy, but why not thoughts themselves? Perhaps, at least

with regard to what we can observer of Frank, every time

Frank thinks of a covariant tensor he is reconstituting

something fundamentally different. The remembering is

always between different forgettings.

 

Ok, I am not sure I could necessarily defend these thoughts.

Further, I am not sure they are necessarily helpful to our

conversation. It seemed a good idea to try.

 

On the topic of steganography, I wanted to mention the

book Steganographia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganographia> . I had originally read about it in some

part of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, and it has since

found a place in my heart. The book, originally written in

1499, is perhaps the oldest text on the subject of cryptography.

What is amazing about the book is that it is an example of

itself (nod to Nick). The plaintext content of the book is

on the subject of magic, but for a reader clever enough to

find the deciphering key the book is about cryptography.

I had found a copy from the 1700's in the rare books library

at the University of Texas some years ago. The content was

doubly hidden from me as I neither had the deciphering

key nor can I read Latin ;)

 

Jon

 

†: If any members of the group would like to form a reading

group around Craig Gentry's thesis on FHE <https://www.bookdepository.com/Fully-Homomorphic-Encryption-Scheme-Craig-Gentry/9781243663139> , I would gladly

participate.

†† While it turned out that the Greek's assumptions about

the power of a compass and straightedge were incorrect,

work beginning with Margherita Beloch <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margherita_Piazzola_Beloch>  (and culminating

with the Huzita-Hatori <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huzita%E2%80%93Hatori_axioms>  axioms) show that origami would

have been a more powerful choice!

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