[FRIAM] signal and noise

[Steve Smith]

glen wrote:
> I think it's reasonable. But I also think it leans wrong, depending on 
> what you mean by "several conversations", "algorithmic", and "noise".
<tangent>I particularly like your use of the idiom "lean's wrong" which 
triggers for me "Tell all the Truth but Tell it Slant" - Emily Dickenson 
<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56824/tell-all-the-truth-but-tell-it-slant-1263> 
</tangent>
>
> Marcus' suggestion that there's an irreducible limit somewhere below 
> whatever SnR threshold is recognized is only a *bottom*. The distance 
> between the recognized threshold and the incompressible kernel of 
> noise is non-zero, almost by definition. 
Seems a bit like Absolute Zero Kelvin?   Theoretically meaningful but in 
some sense never achievable in any observational context?
> And Frank's suggestion that there are established methods to tease 
> more signal from that non-zero band, indicates he sees it as well. 
> Hearken back to my and SteveS' discussion of interstitial spaces being 
> dual to the entity-objects they house and you could see us agreeing 
> with you, there, too.
I remember some of those discussions and appreciate that you reference 
them here (ER-Graph duals as a rough formalism thereof?)
> Jon and SteveG's discussions of duality tend to be less prosaic, but 
> nonetheless a bit mystical.
These must be (mostly) convos on vFriam to which I am (willfully) not 
privy to?   I have elaborate experience with SteveG's daul 
(field-mostly) ideas, though I'm always open for more.   I'm not sure 
I've enjoyed the same from JonZ yet... but look forward to it.   It 
would not surprise me, esp. in the context for example, of the game of 
Go...   a sort of particle-field duality...
> Contra-pose the back and forth of Nick and EricC's constant assertion 
> of behaviorism, Frank's objection, yet the subtle differences and 
> challenges between them, and it should be clear there's a non-zero 
> band between recognized noise and the incompressible limit. 
Referencing back to the earlier "irreducaeble" I think there is 
something fundamental (about "reality" or any given finite 
"consciousnesses" abilty to apprehend it) in these questions which I 
hope get more (meta) insight on in this and other threads here (or my 
own independent pursuits of the topics).
> Jochen posts more questions than answers. Even EricS' conversations 
> with Jon about the expressive power of hypergraphs shows an impetus to 
> circumscribe what's computable and what's not. I mentioned a Wolpert 
> paper awhile back, wherein he gives some air to hypercomputation, to 
> which nobody on the list responded. And you've even defended brute 
> force computation by highlighting the progress and efficacy of 
> techniques like Monte-Carlo simulation.
I remember your reference and waded as deeply  into it as I could before 
my cerebro-spinal fluid got saturated with lactic acid (or depleted of 
ketones?) and remember hoping/trusting that someone with fresher fluid 
(or more of it) would pick up the discussion and help me take a go at it 
with more parallax or maybe only once-rested. I'm not clear on how/if 
you mean that EricS/JonZ's "expressive power of hypergraphs" relates 
directly to Wolpert's cogitations on "hypercomputation"?    I *do* 
connect hypergraph thinking to Simon's "nearly decomposable" systems and 
think if there might be a specific link between the two hypers 
(graph/computation) it might be in the definition (and relevance) of 
"nearly"?   This refers back to the "nearly random" or "nearly noise" or 
"mostly noise" or "irreduceable limit" to noise.

> I'm sure there are other arguments I've missed. 
This was a very useful review/summary for me in any case.  I hope this 
stimulates a "folding" of some of the existing threads ("noodles"... nod 
ot Nick).
> Perhaps you're doing a bit of "othering" in thinking your focus on the 
> noise is unique?
I personally find the foreground/background "dual" of any topic 
interesting to "necker" in my mind.   I admit that I do often (myself, 
though I assume you were addressing DaveW here?) "other" folks or 
discussions which don't seem to allow for the 
graph-dual/necker-cube-dual/fore-background-dual way of contemplating a 
problem/question/conundrum.   This may just be an extremum of my 
preference/proclivity for breadth-v-depth.
> But perhaps, given that we're 99% male and *old*, there's a tendency 
> for most of us to pretend to know more than we know? ... to inflate 
> the epistemic status of our pet hypotheses? 

In the spirit of foreground/background, I think I have to acknowledge 
without prejudice that in our society (especially the subculture of 
sci/tech professionals) male and old do correlate with 
high-epistimic-status.   But conversely, I have to wonder if the 
correlation isn't *through* something more/less than gender and 
years-on-earth.  Science and Technology have experienced a privileged 
position in our larger culture for their *predictive* and *causative* 
strengths...   "age" of course correlates well with "experience" though 
it can also be mitigated by old-dog/new-trick paradoxes, ossified 
values/models, and degenerative cognition.

As an aside (or a precursor) I do remember when being young-male it was 
indicated/rewarded/offered-traction to "act as if" or "pretend ot know 
more than I knew"...  as a youth it was not only allowed but encouraged 
to float my own strawmen understandings as a way to have my friends, 
colleagues, mentors help me polish those turds into something more like 
your "steelman" understandings.


> Humility is punished in most contexts, despite the lip service we pay 
> to it.
Yeh, like that, and Hubris rewarded.   Again, the brashness of youth 
(and male gender?) enhances that...  and perhaps (segue/tangent/aside) 
this is what has 30+% of our population continuing to forgive (nay 
encourage) the likes of DJT and the new "Repubicans" (RITOIs - 
Republicans In Trump's Own Image?) whose only "positive" features are 
narccisism and hubris to the extreme?
> What I see is a persistent inability to play the games set up by 
> others ... an insistence that others always play our own game. When 
> others don't play the game proposed by someone, that someone takes 
> their marbles and leaves.
I've spent my life trying to play other's games and while I *have* taken 
my marbles (the ones I still had intact) and left for other playgrounds 
(not so much "home" as such)...  I don't know that there is *any other 
game* than the Infinite Game (ala James Carse) of the meta-game, 
negotiating what damn game we are playing at?   I think this is the 
point of Your and Marcus discussion (of late) about auto-generation of 
journal publications, etc.   it feels to some of us that the 
introduction of a new player in the meta-game (what is a legitimate 
journal/paper/author?)  muddies the playing field until baseball becomes 
survival in the tarpits?
> The voyeuristic lurkers may enjoy watching different games, but won't 
> play. Some may be frustrated that some games have no clear rules by 
> which to "win" (i.e. come to a Peircian convergence, a belief in 
> Modernist true Truth). Etc.
As a lurker myself (despite my prolific typing here) I will admit to 
both of those sketches...   I sometimes simply "won't play" because I'm 
over my head, I don't feel like (despite my low-threshold for blathering 
on here)  I have anything to add/offer... that any 
comment/observation/retort I might offer would be below some 
signal/noise threshold.  Other times, I'm witholding 
statements/observations/thoughts (i.e. Wolpert) hoping that someone more 
erudite or engaged in the topic than I will elaborate (EricS and RogerC 
are two examples of folks I 'bate my breath waiting for their 
engagements on  various topics, thinking I they will provide useful 
floculance to the discussion).
>
> IDK. Here's a paper coming up quick in my queue that may help 
> demonstrate you're not alone:
>
> The Experimental Evidence for Parapsychological Phenomena: A Review
> https://thothermes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Cardena.pdf
>
> And I mentioned a long while back Broderick and Goertzel's similar 
> effort:
>
> Evidence for Psi: Thirteen Empirical Research Reports
> https://bookshop.org/books/evidence-for-psi-thirteen-empirical-research-reports/9780786478286 
>
>
> which, again, got no response on the list. 
Which seem parallel to the myriad cryptozoological and UFO "serious 
science"....  I am *mostly* exposed to the marginal/pseudoscientific 
bits, and sometimes note (to myself) that the best way to cover *real* 
conspiracies is to gen up a lot of flak unserious bits to displace the 
serious.
> No response or hostile response doesn't mean you're unique in your 
> perception or perspective. It can mean many things. The only thing we 
> *might* control is our own attitude. We can choose to see ourselves in 
> those around us. Or we can other those around us and think we're 
> alone. I try to choose the former.
World as Lover, World as Self 
<https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545908/world-as-lover-world-as-self-30th-anniversary-edition-by-joanna-macy/>(World 
as Battleground, World as Trap) - Joanna Macy
>
>
> On 9/8/22 16:12, Prof David West wrote:
>> It seems, to me, that several conversations here—AI, hallucinogens, 
>> consciousness, participant observation, and epistemology—have a 
>> common aspect: a body of "data" and disagreement over which subset 
>> should be attended to (Signal) and that which is irrelevant (Noise).
>>
>> Arguments for sorting/categorization would include: lack of a 
>> Peircian convergence/consensus; inability to propose proper 
>> experiments; anecdotal versus systematic collection; an absolute 
>> conviction that everything is algorithmic and, even if the algorithm 
>> has yet to be discerned, it, ultimately, must be; etc..
>>
>> I often feel as if my positions on these various topics reduces, in 
>> some sense, to a conviction that there is overlooked Signal in 
>> everyone else's Noise; even to the point of believing the Noise IS 
>> the Signal.
>>
>> Is this in any way a "fair' or "reasonable" analysis?
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20220909/7b41e8f0/attachment.html>