[FRIAM] we are lost

Sat Oct 30 11:39:16 EDT 2021

Roger,

I also regret my answer.  But I still like the question.  I take it as, “What hopeless endeavor does a commitment to categories in though commit one to.  First answer: “Just one more instance.”  Second answer: “Firm Boundaries”. Nature abhors a category.  To assign an event or an object to a category is to piece it with a vector of one’s own choosing and leaving writhing on the plain of Life.   Still, just as we are hunters by nature, so are we category-assigners.  Evolutionarily speaking, we have been abducted by abduction.  

Nick 

Nick Thompson

 <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 Roger Critchlow
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2021 6:39 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] we are lost

I was asking what categories, eg monads, comonads, all these abstractions on the abstractions of mathematics, want, since that might help me understand how they see their purpose, given that I was already being asked about the purpose of a platonic solid.

I hadn't thought about the prehistoric models of platonic solids crafted in rock, they can have purposes like other material objects.  Nor had I considered making the jump from abstract mathematical constructs to groups of people sharing characteristics.

And I was being silly, but I was provoked.

-- rec --

On Fri, Oct 29, 2021 at 1:36 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> > wrote:

Will AIs want the same things I want?   I think Roger was just being silly, but `categories’ could be wrangled into to some vaguely adjacent thing like typed computer programs for autonomous control systems in a robot.  Let’s call it a careful robot.    Will all intelligent life be like humans and will they want love and recognition?   Why must that be the case?  Why must it be true for humans?   Why does HR assume I even want a safe space?   I’m reminded of George Packer’s Free America, Smart America, Real America and Just America.   None of them really gave a damn about the others as far as I can tell.  It is just a model, of course.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/george-packer-four-americas/619012/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> 
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2021 11:30 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] we are lost

Ok, So, Marcus, 

>   What do categories want?

Love, recognition and safety?   Someone phone HR and get the ball rolling on a new policy!

Spoken from the high perch of Irony.  Irony is like wormwood, delightful in small doses but ultimately toxic.  Do we not all want love, recognition, and safety?  Do we also want excitement and challenge.  Go figure!   Some of us crave more of the one; some more of the other.  Given the contradiction between those things, can we expect the right balance be guaranteed for each and every one of us, for all time?  No.  Of course not.   But is that reason to mock human striving toward these goals?  Or to mock Utilitarian attempts to facilitate their achievement?  No.  I don’t think so.  Irony is a guilty pleasure.  Even though I use it and enjoy it, I have to admit that it is a an abdication and fails as a policy.  

Nick 

Nick Thompson

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

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2021 8:18 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] we are lost

> So, not only do we attribute teleology to inanimate objects, weather, animals, and people, but also to the platonic solids.  Which probably leads to:

> 

>   What do categories want?

Love, recognition and safety?   Someone phone HR and get the ball rolling on a new policy!

Marcus

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