[FRIAM] hidden

Tue May 19 16:02:15 EDT 2020

Dreams:  A *lot* of clinical (idiographic) reading would be obligatory to
do it right.  I am skeptical that a nomothetic approach would be possible
or useful.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, May 19, 2020, 1:41 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi, all,
>
>
>
> Before it gets buried and institutionalized in the thread, the term is
> “idiographic”, not “ideographic”.  It doesn’t have to do with ideas but
> with  the study of events that are thought of as inherently individual,
> one-off, non-repeatable.  Case histories are idiographs.  The contrast
> class is nomothetic, having to do with the discovery of laws that relate
> classes of objects or events.  A full on double blind controlled experiment
> is an example of nomothetic research.  Psychology Departments can tear
> themselves apart arguing about which is the most worthy.  I think the
> distinction is worth bearing in mind, although common sense dictates that
> an experience that cannot be assigned to a class and does not imply some
> lawful relation is impossible.
>
>
>
> So what about the FRIAM study of dreams?
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
> *Sent:* Tuesday, May 19, 2020 1:28 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] hidden
>
>
>
>  > I don’t have anything useful or clarifying to say about inner
> experience either, except to vote that it seems a fine term from which to
> begin an in
>
>
>
> Psychoanalysts have been working on this for over a century but scientists
> reject their methodology and many of their conclusions.  They reject them
> qua scientists but many embrace them personally if they live in a place
> where psychodynamic therapy is available.  Nothing could be more
> ideographic than an extremely deep investigation of an individual's "inner
> life" including her dreams, fantasies, and memories of childhood pains and
> joys.
>
>
>
> Based on living in Pittsburgh where there are two major universities I can
> say, tentatively, that there are high energy physicists and even
> behaviorists who have benefitted from this approach.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 19, 2020, 12:49 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> EricS, Glen, David, Frank, Steve, EricC Old Uncle Tom Cobbley, and all,
>
>
>
> Let me again thank you all for allowing me to sharpen my thinking against
> your whetstone.
>
>
>
> I am perhaps at my most uneasy arguing against EricS, but here goes.
>
>
>
> Speaking of whetstones, let’s start with Glen’s most recent post, because
> it set’s a limit to how far I am willing to push the argument I have been
> making:
>
>
>
> With the above context, I confirm "out loud" that I don't believe in this
> position that EricC and Nick seem to hold. I firmly believe in an opaque
> inner world. But it's an ideal belief, not a practical one. That's the only
> reason I find it interesting to try to formulate their position in my own
> words.
>
> My monism is limited to formal thought, to the project of building an
> approach to understanding that is as comprehensive and consistent as
> possible.  I.e., a scientific understanding.  But I am an
> imagination-pluralist.  For instance, one of my favorite sayings is, “No
> person should be denied the pleasures of imagining heaven because s/he
> happens to be an atheist.”  I routinely suggested to graduate students that
> they should stop trying to cram their ideas into a scientific format and go
> write a novel, since the idea they were trying to expose was more suitable
> to that format.  So, if we are arguing about the right of humans to take
> sustenance from any form of thinking that pleases them, then let the
> argument cease.   But whenever informal thinking shapes formal thinking
> (which it always does, to some extent), then I think we need to talk about
> it in a formal way.)  Thus, if you change Glen’s “practical” above to
> “Practicial” (= of, or related to, scientific practice), I agree with him
> entirely.
>
>
>
> That said, if you’re not exhausted, you might have a look at the larding
> of EricS’s note, below:
>
>
>
> Thanks again, all,
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *David Eric Smith
> *Sent:* Monday, May 18, 2020 10:26 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] hidden
>
>
>
> As I read this,I am reminded of the 20th century (seems to long ago), in
> which the high-energy physicists dug a social pit for themselves, from
> which the ones they offended do not want ever to let them escape.
>
>
>
> Keyword is Reductionism.  The narrative went something like this (HEP =
> High Energy Physicist; ROS = anyone from the Rest of Science)
>
> *[NST===>I am a reductionist, but let me be precise about what that means
> to me.    To me, a concept has been reduced when anybody asserts that there
> is only one key into it (to use the Metaphor Glen and I have been
> exploring.)  The traditional forms of reduction are reductions in scale, as
> when somebody asserts that the mind is just brain activity or behavior is
> just muscle twitches.  I abhor this kind of reductionism, and think it is
> the worst kind of misdirection and obscurantism.  I am an
> “up-reductionist”.  My crime is that I assert that the one key to the mind
> is to look up and out, rather than down and in.   Our minds are something
> about us, not something within us.   <===nst] *
>
>
>
> HEP: In principle, whatever you care about is a result of interaction of
> our building blocks.
>
> ROS: Well, okay, but your saying that hasn’t addressed basically anything
> in what we wanted to understand from what we do.
>
> HEP: Whatever you wanted to understand was just a problem of assembly.
>
> ROS: “Just assembly” has its own rules which are not already expressed in
> the rules by which you characterize your building blocks (Of course, the
> objection was never made with such circumspection, but usually in less
> clear terms.)
>
> HEP: Well, in principle we understand all that.
>
> ROS: Then In Practice, say something we find useful or interesting.
>
> HEP: In Principle we understand all that.
>
> ROS: You are a robot.
>
>
>
> And in that way, “reductionist” got entrenched as a synonym for
> “philistine” who thinks there isn’t anything left to explain beyond a few
> descriptions of building blocks.  Not only did it lead to a lot of
> unproductive fighting, it also made it much harder for those who had useful
> points of view on what reductionism is, or isn’t, to relate its
> contributions to all the other work that involves understanding of new
> explanatory primitives.
>
> *[NST===>If anybody on this list thinks I hold the above position, I have
> been a very poor expositor, indeed. <===nst] *
>
>
>
>
>
> The behaviorists sound _so_ much like the reductionists sounded, and it is
> not for me to say whether they want to sound that way or not.
>
> *[NST===>Well, sure.  I guess some behaviorists have sounded that way.
> But not Tolman, and certainly not Peirce, for instance.  <===nst] *
>
>   They are so hell-bent on not giving an inch to the spiritualists (a
> worthy position IMO)
>
> *[NST===>OK, so here I am about to confirm my philistinity… (By the way,
> when is the world going to wake up and remember that Philistine is a racist
> term.)… by asking you what you think spiritualism is and what it is worthy
> OF?  In other words, I don’t think you get your “by the way.” It may be “in
> the way.”    <===nst] *
>
>  that they sound like they are claiming a scope of knowledge including all
> the things about which they don’t have anything particularly satisfying to
> say.  They are sure, in the end, They Know what science will consist of, at
> least In Principle.  They may actually be right on parts of that, but to
> assert that your system of understanding will, you are confident, subsume
> all the future problems about which, for the present, you are unable to say
> anything actually elucidating, is of questionable utility.
>
> *[NST===>There’s a huge difference between agreeing to try to build such a
> system (knowing you will almost certainly fail), and asserting that one
> already has one.  <===nst] *
>
>  It’s fine to believe that, but if it does no work for you, it is not
> easily distinguishable from a not-even-wrong claim.  At the most benign, it
> substitutes putting a lot of energy into defending the turf (of what? of
> “materialism”? or is that now such an overused term that we would like
> something fresh to characterize the non-spiritualist, non-vitalist
> position?), instead of engaging with where the other person wants the
> discussion to be, which is to say “Hey, there is some distinct cognitive or
> experiential primitive here, which I don’t know how to characterize in a
> satisfying way; would you like to help me think about it?”
>
> *[NST===>Great!  Let’s do that work! * Is this the same as saying “hey, we
> seem to share some productive patterns of thought, here, which we have not
> articulated, let alone integrated into our larger system.  How can we do
> that? But to the extent that spiritual means not amenable to integration
> into the practices of science, we are blocked from having any systematic
> conversation about spirit.  <===nst] *
>
>
>
> My own expectation is that the kinds of primitives that people are after
> will have a certain character of irreducibility about them, and that is
> what makes them both interesting and hard to drag out into clarity.  And be
> careful: when I say “irreducibility” I use the word advisedly, and by
> analogies to cases where it does very good work.  In group theory, we are
> very interested in distinctions between irreducible and reducible
> representations.  Tononi’s construction — whatever its other virtues or
> defects — is essentially a measure of the irreducibility in some
> information-transmission measure.  Even prime numbers have a specific kind
> of irreducibility that makes their status not decidable with less than
> exhaustive search.  The image I want to take from those examples is the
> same kind of “irreducibility” of patterns that the ROS character above was
> referring to when he said there are aspects of the patterns that come out
> at higher order that require their own system, which is its own kind of
> thing that occupies science in addition to the system that characterizes
> the building blocks and the local rules for their combination.  All the
> systems that characterize all the irreducible patterns are compatible with
> the building blocks, but precisely because each of them captures something
> different, the system for the building blocks doesn’t extract any of them
> _in its particularity_, and it is getting at that particularity that the
> whole rest of science is occupied with.
>
> *[NST===> Is a cake irreduceable?  I think it is.  If you agree on that
> point, then I really don’t have to say anything other than that I agree
> with all of the above.  To the extent that I see you-all exploring a
> mathematical or algorithmic reduction of the irreducible, I wait outside
> your conference room for news of your success.  <===nst] *
>
>
>
> (Btw, the rabid Darwinists do the same thing.  That is what enables
> Richard Dawkins to take what would otherwise be completely reasonable
> positions, and turn them into an overall offensive posture.
>
> *[NST===>Dawkins does not have a consistent or comprehensive view of
> evolution, let along anything else.  He flagrantly abuses the Darwinian
> metaphor.  So please don’t hang that particular dead chicken around my
> neck.  Any Darwinist who did not get on the evo-devo train, was left at the
> station a generation ago. <===nst] *
>
>  And the character of the deflection is the same.  If Darwinism contains
> everything, then it isn’t doing the work for you of extracting some
> further, particular thing.)*[NST===>I agree that anything that claims to
> be everything is probably nothing.  That does not keep me from – as a
> matter of method – attempting to “push” a line of thought as far as it
> takes me. I see that this is contradictory.   [sigh].<===nst] *
>
>
>
>
>
> Sorry for the meta-commentary on conversation analysis (or opinionizing).
> I don’t have anything useful or clarifying to say about inner experience
> either, except to vote that it seems a fine term from which to begin an
> interesting investigation.
>
> *[NST===>Well, only if it’s not understood as “that which we cannot
> investigate.”  <===nst] *
>
>
>
> *[NST===>* I have decided to adopt Glen’s footnote practice.  OK, so how
> about we commit ourselves right now to the design and execution of a
> research project on dreams.  How would we go about it?  I think it might
> turn out to be the hardest thing we ever did.  <===nst] *
>
> Eric
>
>
>
>
>
> On May 19, 2020, at 12:15 PM, <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> <
> thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> You have a life for which, at the moment, only you hold the key.   That’s
> the furthest I am prepared to go.
>
>
>
> N
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
> *Sent:* Monday, May 18, 2020 9:13 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] hidden
>
>
>
> Then quit saying I don't have an  inner life.  The inner expeeiences are
> the memories I have in the present and at various times in the past and the
> wondering about whatever became of her (and others).
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 18, 2020, 8:48 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> 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> 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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