[FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

Wed Oct 28 18:44:47 EDT 2020

…which would explain why I have never quite understood auto poeisis.  It’s one of those Escher things … the hand drawing the hand.  

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 Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 2:53 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

Maturana and Varela use structural coupling at the "indiivual" before the "individual in context" before "group" before "control structures," e.g. "mind."

davew

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, at 2:48 PM, Prof David West wrote:

A simple — stymergic — example. Write down your waking blood sugar measure; then everything you eat and the time you ate it; two hours after each intake, measure and record your sugar level; and finally, your sugar level as you retire to bed. Do this for several weeks. Your behavior will change in detail, to your betterment. You do not even need to look at what you wrote down or analyze it in any fashion. There is some degree of talisman magic in knowing that the recordings are stored somewhere and available for review if you ever wanted to, or if your clinician wanted to use it as data to develop a hypothesis.

Since you brought up the word and seem to think it has some meaning — I have never understood stymergy because it seems to be grounded in the notion that an organism is separate/apart from its environment. My understanding of reality would assert that each are constant and simultaneous co-mediators of each other. (Actually they are the same thing and any apparent differentiation is just illusion.)

The entire concept of autopoeisis and structural coupling, as I understand it, would seem to be an example of "something at a higher order improving itself by arranging its parts."

davew

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, at 1:32 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>  wrote:

If one allows stygmergy as a form of downward causation, I can understand it.  So I guess I am looking for the simplest kind of example of self assembly: i.e., where something of a higher order improves itself by improving the arrangement of its parts.  Or places constraints on its parts to be good for itself. There may be a thousand examples.  I just can’t think of one that doesn’t involve group selection. 

N

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 Frank Wimberly

Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 1:16 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

I'm not Marcus but a classical example is mental events causing physical events.  Note the use of mental language.

---

Frank C. Wimberly

140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 

Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918

Santa Fe, NM

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:12 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Marcus, 

 can't claim to understand you fully, here, but your use of the word, sovereignty, made me think you might have something to contribute to a quandary I found myself in recently.  I was on a zoom with a bunch of people.  First they talked about emergence, and I figured I understand that.  Wimsatt: a property is emergent if it is a property of a whole that depends on the order or arrangement of the parts.  So, the ability of sticks to bear weight depends  on their arrangement as triangles.   So far, so good.  But then the began to talk about "downward" causation, and I realized that I did not know, nor have I ever known, what people mean by "downward" causation.  Do you have some simple models of it in mind that even I could understand? 

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 Marcus Daniels

Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 9:17 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

Using statistical mechanics to inspire a stable and universal functional form that evolves in time is one way to make a model of social systems.   But even with that for model of the physical world, there are many possible models for control systems that could layer on top of it.   If there are no shared concept types in these different models, there's nothing to do but go back to simulating the physics to determine what could happen next.   Simulating these physics takes energy that is of no discernable value to users of any one model so at some point there will be conflict over that energy.    The Libertarian claims that there is something in common between the users of these models, but it is nothing more than story that serves her purposes.   There is no reason not to violate her sovereignty if the reward/risk is acceptable.  

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of ? glen

Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 7:18 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats

Well, sure. But the assumptions and simplifications are piling up fast. With anarcho-capitalism, I was trying to suggest a governing system that relies on as few assumptions as possible. And my sense is that social democracy relies on more assumptions (like the existence of stable functional forms).

On September 14, 2020 6:13:33 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> > wrote:

>It depends whether you think of "static" as some circumscribed state or 

>"static" as a fixed functional form.  (The latter still allowing for a

>dynamical system.)   The appropriation/application of the notion of a

>"phase transition" would probably argue for the fixed functional form 

>on the basis of physics.

--

glen ⛧

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