[FRIAM] more structure-based mind-reading
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Tue Sep 6 14:04:18 EDT 2022
On 9/6/22 7:57 AM, glen wrote:
> Well, Steve's targeting of "feeling included" does target
> "understanding". I'd argue that the spies don't understand the
> communities they infiltrate. Even deep undercover or method acting
> doesn't provide understanding. I argue that any bad faith actor like a
> spy or "acting while cynical" has a reductive objective as their
> target. What was interesting about the concept of bad faith was
> Sartre's suggestion that the deep undercover operator who finally
> *does* begin to identify with the community they've infiltrated is the
> interesting edge case. That's the cusp of understanding.
Gone native, as it were...
I'll admit to struggling most of my life with the desire to
"understand", and an intuitive awareness that I at least have to "act as
if" something is true, or I am a member of a community, and it is the
_cynical girding_ that I instinctively/habitually use to protect my
(current) self that on one hand *allows* me to "act as if" whilst
keeping me from actually "understanding" in your sense of the word.
Sometimes the cynical girding softens and in some cases (eventually?)
falls away. Some of the *very best* Catholics I know were
converts-by-marriage who ended up learning about and embracing the
better angels of that heritage without some of the worser demons. Most
escaped/reformed/recovering Catholics I know have a never-ending
struggle with the blame/shame/guilt holy trinity.
Anyone who has tried to drop or acquire a habit (e.g.
nicotine/alcohol/opiods - dental-hygiene/exercise/meditation) will know
the approach which is to simply *change the behaviour, and the rest will
follow". One day you ARE a person with good dental hygiene or a
*former* smoker or an AA/NA person with a pin with a double-digit number
of months sober. You will never be a lifetime abstainer, it's too late
for that.
It is, of course, never that easy, but for myself the spectre of
procrastinion is one thing I know well that works well in this mode.
If I go ahead and *do the thing* I would otherwise avoid/delay, I *can*
get in the groove of doing things at the _earliest possible moment_
rather than the _latest_ or _never_. Mantras like "I can always
procrastinate later" and "the best way to get something done is to do
it" help draw and keep me back in that mode, but the very fact of them
suggest that I am not "there yet". In some parts of my life I am, in
fact, no longer a procrastinator using this "method"... it started as
an actor, and eventually I *became* that character, it inhabited me.
I've gone native.
> I suppose I'm making a similar argument to EricC's argument for
> "belief", which I call "dispositional". If you don't act on your
> belief, then you don't actually believe that thing. So, an undercover
> cop who infiltrates a drug cartel but refuses to Necklace a local
> do-gooder just doesn't understand what it means to be in the cartel.
> They can't understand. And they shouldn't understand. The spy is there
> for a more specific objective, not understanding.
I have watched a number of undercover cop stories in my life and a (very
few) of them addressed this *very well*, sometimes with the undercover
cop truly *going native* and sometimes finding some kind of *righteous
bad guy* role to play where (s)he models a new moral system (i.e. honor
among thieves). These are fictions of course, but possibly
instructive or illuminating of the "edge cases". Also, it is typecast
required that the intimates/relationships of these undercover people
suffer from the ambiguity/paradoxes of "playing it both ways".
> One of those more specific objectives might be *prediction*. In
> simulation and [x|i]ML, there's a stark distinction between predictive
> versus explanatory power. Ideally, strong explanatory power provides
> predictive power. But practically, 80/20, reductive prediction is
> easier, faster, and more important. The excess meaning is swept under
> the rug of variation or noise. At raves, a reductive objective is harm
> reduction. Sure, it would be fantastic to teach all the kids
> pharmaco[kinetics|dynamics] and chemistry ... as well as psychology
> and neuroscience. But the harm reduction tent is not really there to
> get into the kids' minds. The objective isn't understanding. It's a
> reductive focus on dampening the edge cases.
This yields a tangent in my mind (really?) about episodic vs
diachronic, realism vs impressionism, show vs tell in narrative,
etc. But I'll save that for another post (or not).
>
> On 9/3/22 08:47, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> The claim is that there is all this diversity in subcultures and that
>> the only way to understand them is to participate in them. If it is
>> possible to fake it, and I think it is, then that raises doubts about
>> the claim. That is what spies specialize in.
>>
>>> On Sep 2, 2022, at 7:17 PM, Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I have spent most of my life avoiding "acting while cynical"... I
>>> have *felt* cynical about a lot of things, and Marcus' description
>>> of a lot of things speaks to my "inner cynic" but I haven't spent
>>> much time being *harmed* by engaging in "performative activities
>>> while feeling cynical about them". If I dig a hole it is either
>>> because *I* need a hole, or someone else *needs* a whole, and only
>>> rarely do I help someone dig a hole as a team/trust/affinity
>>> building exercise unless the There are too many holes in the world
>>> that *want* digging to spend much effort en-performance.
>>>
>>> I've never felt particulary "included" in any social circle and I
>>> have seen that a little bit of "Performative Grease" might have
>>> helped this square peg fit more-better in the round holes it
>>> encountered, but generally I simply avoided those activities and
>>> drifted further and further out. That is not to say I haven't
>>> *tried* to be a good sport and do what others were doing on the off
>>> chance that it would actually be something that worked for me, but
>>> generally not.
>>>
>>> BTW... there seems to be some inverted general usage of
>>> "square-peg/round-hole", drilling a round hole and then driving a
>>> square(ish) peg into it guarantees a good tight fit... it is
>>> preferred to round peg-round hole in traditional joinery.
>>>
>>>> On 9/2/22 8:17 AM, glen wrote:
>>>> OK. But the affinity and "inner self" alluded to by the phrase
>>>> "faking it" is nothing but a personality momentum, a build-up of
>>>> past behaviors, like a fly-wheel spun up by all the previous
>>>> affinities and faking of it. We faked it in our mom's womb, faked
>>>> it as babies, faked it as children on the playground or in class,
>>>> etc. all the way up to the last time we faked it digging ditches or
>>>> pair programming in Java.
>>>>
>>>> The only difference between feeling an affinity and engaging in a
>>>> new faking it exercise is the extent to which the new collaboration
>>>> is similar to the previous collaborations. As both Steve and Dave
>>>> point out, spend enough time living in a world and you'll grow
>>>> affine to that world (and the world will grow affine to you).
>>>>
>>>> I suppose it's reasonable to posit a spectrum (or a higher dim
>>>> space) on which some people have particularly inertial fly-wheels
>>>> and others have more easily disturbed things that store less
>>>> energy. Of the Big 5, my guess would be neuroticism would be most
>>>> inertial. Perhaps openness and agreeableness would be the least
>>>> inertial.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On 9/2/22 05:35, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>>>> There are many common tasks that parties could direct their
>>>>> attention toward. This happens at companies, prison cafeterias,
>>>>> and churches. That it is grounded in a particular way doesn't
>>>>> make it any truer, or anyone more committed to it. We are often
>>>>> forced to participate in cultures we don't care about, and faking
>>>>> it is an important skill. Just because someone sweats or gets
>>>>> calluses or tolerates others' inappropriate emotions in some
>>>>> circle of people, doesn't mean there is any affinity toward that
>>>>> circle. Oh look, he dug a hole. I dug a hole. Sure, I'd do
>>>>> those kind of performative activities if I were a politician, as I
>>>>> bet there are people who think this way.
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
>>>>> Sent: Friday, September 2, 2022 12:06 AM
>>>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>>>>> <friam at redfish.com>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] more structure-based mind-reading
>>>>>
>>>>> And, of course, there is no such thing except appearance. What
>>>>> could it possibly mean to say that an appearance of a bond exists,
>>>>> but no actual bond exists?
>>>>>
>>>>> On September 1, 2022 7:29:45 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels
>>>>> <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>>>>>> If you want to create the appearance of a bond where none exists,
>>>>>> get to work. Once one recognizes the nature of work it is easy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sep 1, 2022, at 6:25 PM, Prof David West
>>>>>> <profwest at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> From glen: "If you want to share values with some arbitrary
>>>>>> shmoe, then get to
>>>>>> *work*. Build something or cooperate on a common task.
>>>>>> Talking,
>>>>>> communicating, is inadequate at best, disinfo at worst."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is kinda the whole point of Participant Observation at the
>>>>>> core of cultural anthropology. The premise is you cannot truly
>>>>>> understand a culture until you live it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course, there is still a boundary, a separation, between the
>>>>>> anthropologist and those with whom she interacts, but sweat,
>>>>>> calluses, blood, and emotions go a long way toward establishing
>>>>>> actual understanding.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> davew
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 1, 2022, at 12:30 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 9/1/22 11:21 AM, glen wrote:
>>>>>> Inter-brain synchronization occurs without physical co-presence
>>>>>> during cooperative online gaming
>>>>>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393222001750
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There's a lot piled into the aggregate measures of EEG. And the
>>>>>> mere fact of the canalization conflates the unifying tendencies
>>>>>> of the objective (shared purpose) with that of the common
>>>>>> structure (virtual world, interface, body, brain). But overall,
>>>>>> it argues against this guru focus on "sense-making" (hermeneutic,
>>>>>> monistic reification) and helps argue for the fundamental
>>>>>> plurality, openness, and stochasticity of "language games".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you want to share values with some arbitrary shmoe, then get
>>>>>> to *work*. Build something or cooperate on a common task.
>>>>>> Talking, communicating, is inadequate at best, disinfo at worst.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I agree somewhat with the spirit of this, however a recent
>>>>>> writer/book I discovered is Sand
>>>>>> Talk<https://www.harpercollins.com/products/sand-talk-tyson-yunkaporta?variant=32280908103714>
>>>>>> by Tyson Yunkaporta and more specifically his references to
>>>>>> "Yarning" in his indigenous Australian culture offered me a
>>>>>> complementary perspective...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I definitely agree that the "building of something together" is a
>>>>>> powerful world-building/negotiating/collaborative/seeking
>>>>>> experience. The social sciences use the term Boundary
>>>>>> Object<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_object> and
>>>>>> Boundary Negotiation Artifact. Jenny and I wrote a draft
>>>>>> white-paper on the topic of the SimTable as a "boundary
>>>>>> negotiating artifact" last time she visited (2019?). A lot of
>>>>>> computer-graphics/visualization products provide fill this role,
>>>>>> but the physicality of a sand-table with it's tactility and
>>>>>> multiple perspectives add yet more. The soap-box racer or fort
>>>>>> you build with your friend as a kid provides the same. The bulk
>>>>>> of my best relationships in life involved "building something
>>>>>> together" whether it be a software system or a house...
>>>>
>
>
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