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Tue May 19 19:39:57 EDT 2020

Q: Why are not dreams, like any other experience, proper objects o study?  
A:  Because, unlike other experiences, we report them after we have them. 
Q: No, that can't be right.  There is no situation in which we actually report the experience precisely as we have it.  So, the difference between a dream and any other reportable experience is a matter of degree. 
A: Oh, all right.  We can't study dreams because there is no way to observe you having the experience.
Q: Well, what if we take REM sleep as a proxy for dreaming.  Now we can observe you having the experience. 
A:  Well, I suppose.  But you  can't observe the experience that I am having.  
... to be continued. 

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2020 3:33 PM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] hidden

On 5/19/20 1:47 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
> The part I *think*
> you want to preserve is perhaps is that of lossless dimension 
> reduction, and a part-whole relation (where any small part/sampling of 
> the whole-ogram yields *some* information about the whole target)?

Yes. I take the position to be: all valid questions about psychology can be properly asked as questions about behavior. This implies, to me, that all valid questions about anything can be properly asked as questions about the distinguishability limit between that thing (being studied, the object) and another thing (e.g. the question asker). I would NOT go so far as to say the transformation from object to distinguishability limit is *lossless*. (In analogy with black holes, what goes in comes out randomized ... again, if understand what I'm talking about ... which is unlikely.) And, also yes, there is a part-whole relationship in talking about the object, the transformations from object to question asker, and question asker. 

> And I think the corner of this I was trying to pry up was that 
> "obscurity" is relative.

Well, maybe. Let's say you're someone like Nick trying to decide whether or not your computer has been compromised. Then compare that to someone like you doing the same thing. While it's true that the space of things Nick considers might be observables is different from the space of things you might consider are observables, that you are both fully large dimensional creatures *might* suggest that the relative entropies are the same, for all intents and purposes. Sure, you know a few more heuristics to winnow out the plausible decoders than Nick. But the sheer number of ways your computer can be compromised might *swamp* any difference between the two of you.

My argument is that no matter what thing (object) we're considering decoding ... a basketball, a human, an ant colony, etc. the number of ways we *could* decode what's written right there on the surface swamps any difference between 2 particular question askers. This is why I cite Rosen and von Neumann and, hell, even Feynman, e.g. the description of an object is of a higher order than the object itself. All successful cracks are banal tricks. It's easier to be a script kiddy than it is to be an intrusion detection specialist. The obscurity lies in the number of possible decoders, not the thing that needs to be decoded.

> Not to beg this issue much further, but I guess in your example, I was 
> thinking that the young engineers working at the 
> quantum-time-tunneling laboratory might well keep their secrets 
> obscure from the cute girl simply through the use of shared idioms 
> (amongst the engineers) which she is not privy to by virtue of not 
> being a young man nor an engineer.   Another type of obscurity?

Heh, not to beg it further, but ... [begs it further]. No. The cute girl spy is probably *more* well-versed in the young engineer domain than the young engineer is. (And, to be clear, I never suggested the young engineer was a man.)

> I suppose I haven't yet accepted that QC is qualitatively the same as 
> a universal computer (archetypical von Neuman machine)...   or the 
> equivalence (by construction) of nDmState CA by n'Dm'State (where n'<n 
> and m'>m).  TANSTAAFL suggests that in space-time trades they 
> might/must/should-oughta be the same, but I don't think that's a done 
> deal yet?

Not that I know of. But it doesn't matter for this conversation. I'll allow that if QC turns out to be something fantastic like hyper-computation, then woohoo (!) privacy by obscurity is gone forever. But until then, I'm skeptical.

> I apologize for being the tangenter that I apparently am... or 
> apologize for the effect of it on the conversation... BUT...  I think 
> when it comes to the adversarial co-evolution you were not (yet) 
> talking about, I think Alan Kay's "best way to predict the future is 
> to invent it" is part of the strategy of various flavors of con-men 
> which is to plant a tiny seed in the mark's head and then fertilize it 
> and water it until it becomes the mark's own idea about the future 
> (hopes and fears).   One way to come to a "common understanding" is to 
> bully or manipulate others into sharing your own (or some variant of it).

I'm not sure if you grokked my attitude towards psychodynamics and that's why you said "bully". Regardless, it's spot on. The only way you'll get me on the couch is if you physically force and restrain me. It seems to me what they do is build a pseudo-relationship with you in order to manipulate you into speech and thought patterns that, then, *reprogram* you. For those of us with debilitating habits who (eventually) "accept a higher power", I'm sure it's fine. But I suspect there's a whole host of people whose consent in such a process is *implied* at best. And if you made it clear that they were undergoing "benevolent brainwashing", they might object.

If someone actually suggested interpreting my dreams, I'd literally laugh out loud [†]. As someone who sporadically reads the Tarot and runs some Numerological "analyses", I've bumped up against how tender and manipulable people can be. It's beyond disgusting that people do this for a living, much less call themselves "therapists" or "doctors". A better term would be "reeducators".

[†] Last night, I dreamt my cat Scooter killed my friend Brock because he was trying to put Scooter in the cat carrier (and I was trying to put his cat in his cat carrier). I told Scooter about the dream this morning while I was lifting weights. Scooter didn't respond at all ... because interpreting dreams is a silly thing to waste time on.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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