[FRIAM] aversive learning

Wed Sep 1 18:09:26 EDT 2021

EricS asked:

What am I but an individual? 

Could you simply be a unique node in a system of interacting forces?  

I have long wanted to write an essay as a psychologist to a meteorology journal entitled “Should we name storms?

The first part of the essay argues that we shouldn’t name them because storms, unlike humans, are not proper individuals.  Ie the forces that move them are not the forces that define them. 

The second part argues that we should name them because humans are, in fact,, like storms, each one defined by the particular forces that act upon it.  

Nick

Nick Thompson

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Wednesday, September 1, 2021 5:58 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] aversive learning

> On Sep 1, 2021, at 11:41 PM, Marcus Daniels < <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:

> 

> I was made to take piano lessons for five years.  I did minimal practice, but still hated it and the idea of it.  I can’t do it all now, and don’t wish I could.   Don’t tell me what is important.  I will prioritize what I want.

I am imagining I see a through-line here, for several threads.

We take individuality for granted; after all, what else can I be but an individual?  (The Buddhists will get all energized that that view is what is sending the world to hell.)

But being an individual isn’t easy.  One can’t do it passively.  One has to constantly fight off the world’s encroachment to be an individual.  Hence elbowing for space, just to elbow for space, is probably innate.

There is a line, I think somewhere in Bible/Job/ that I have always liked and used, even though the book as a whole isn’t gripping to me, like something from an alien species, and could sort-of be about making almost-any point.  It was:

“Why dost thou kick against the pricks?”

I remember I was all in a prowl over getting an idiot-review of a paper, and in the mood that that puts me in, that I am eager to meet the reviewer with an A-10.  I wandered into the SFI kitchen to encounter Walter Fontana, always for me a comforting presence that the world would continue to have at least one interesting person in it, no matter what else happened.  I was unloading on him, because the only time I am funny is when I am really annoyed, and I don’t want all that to be lost, like Rutger Hauer says, “like tears, in rain” with nobody to enjoy it.  About 2 minutes in, I had Walter laughing out loud, and the culmination of my relation to reviewers was:

Why dost thou kick against the pricks?  Because they piss me off!

But back to the point: do we learn anything about the nature of individuality?

Eric

> That said, a vaccine is passive and takes no attention.

> 

>> On Sep 1, 2021, at 7:29 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ < <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com> gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

>> 

>> 

>> UK judge orders rightwing extremist to read classic literature or 

>> face prison

>>  <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.c> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.c

>> om%2fpolitics%2f2021%2fsep%2f01%2fjudge-orders-rightwing-extremist-to

>> -read-classic-literature-or-face-prison&c=E,1,M9NK9YVSpDUE3ATp1xxsWZ6

>> 6fJfv7F41fZ3yhs00aXqlOlf6_8OBrRKThjnj4inZPPTHFPQ7WNCTHfJ5cMMP63OghVQR

>> 2wAsowx7Pdk58b0,&typo=1

>> 

>> I know several liberals who agree with the righties that vaccine and mask mandates are bad, though not for the same reasons. Righties yap about fascism and limits to their "freedom". But the liberals talk about how mandates just push the righties further into their foxholes, preventing collegial conversation.

>> 

>> So the story above is an interesting situation in similar style. Renee', to this day, hates Shakespeare because she was forced to memorize Romeo and Juliet as a kid. Of course, she doesn't hate Shakespeare, because she hasn't read much Shakespeare. She just *thinks* she hates it because of this "mandate" she suffered under. This court mandated "literature therapy" being imposed on this kid could work, if he can read it sympathetically. But if he can't, if he simply reads it "syntactically", what will he learn?

>> 

>> BC Smith, in his book "The Promise of AI", channels Steels & Brooks [ψ] in writing:

>> 

>> "What does all this mean in the case of AIs and computer systems generally? Perhaps at least this: that it is hard to see how synthetic systems could be trained in the ways of judgment except by gradually, incrementally, and systematically enmeshed in normative practices that engage with the world and that involve thick engagement with teachers ('elders'), who can steadily develop and inculcate not just 'moral sensibility' but also intellectual appreciation of intentional commitment to the world."

>> 

>> If we think of this kid, Ben John, as an AI, what will he learn by mandating he read Dickens? Similarly, what are the mandate protesters learning from our mandates? Stupidity should be painful. And the court's reaction to this kid's stupidity, the pain of reading Pride and Prejudice, should teach that kid something. But which is the more dangerous stupidity? Which stupidity runs the risk of a more catastrophic outcome? Avoiding the vaccine? Or mandating vaccination?

>> 

>> 

>> [ψ] 

>>  <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fdoi.org%2f10.4324> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fdoi.org%2f10.4324

>> %2f9781351001885&c=E,1,kUEPqU5HqAHoV8Du4pwpdvHxqK_cJ1fOdlepXjYSapoLr0

>> ahTnkT06xd9Ll5tgJAyZ0h6glDWPK6a_eBJPD9GwxJm6FJFc-LbP5e9rdDCai8Wg,,&ty

>> po=1

>> 

>> --

>> ☤>$ uǝlƃ

>> 

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