[FRIAM] Tangents and the Hamiltonian of News/Cultural Narratives

[Frank Wimberly]

Steve

Quibbles:

An uncountable set is infinite.  It's just that there are infinite sets
with larger cardinality.

There is only one tangent vector at a point along a differentiable curve, I
believe.

Frank

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, Feb 18, 2023, 10:11 AM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

> <on a tangent from a tangent among tangents>
>
> Thanks to EricC for introducing the very idea of a *tangent* to this
> discussion.  I would propose that "mental stuff" might be characterized
> *by* tangents?   The mathematical/geometric definition of *tangent* tends
> to suggest a *reduction* of the curve or arc or path at a specific point
> along it *to* the direction components of that point/vector in phase space.
>
> When we colloquially say something is a tangent (a geometric metaphor for
> thought and discussion) we mean that at some point along the path of
> logic/conversation/discussion/description *another* path diverges but in
> fact follows the instantaneous or point-localized vector and is one of an
> uncountable member of a family of curves with that direction component.
> This implies that it is relevant to the original (implied) path but somehow
> is unexpected or a divergence from what *somebody* regards as the original
> arc of the conversation?
>
> In the spirit of an extravagant application of metaphor I realized as I
> was trying to formulate *this tangent* that my underlying model of human
> thought (individual and collective) is registered on a high dimensional
> calculus of variations conceit.    And in deference to Glen's regular
> reminder to of us of the risk of excess meaning (also Reese and Overton
> 1970) and premature binding/registration, I do believe that there are
> elements of a romantic/nostalgic force-fit in this game I play here.
>
> It feels to me as if at "every point in a conversation" that there are a
> plethora (uncountable but not infiinite?) of possible divergences and to be
> healthy (whatever that means) there needs to be a tension between
> predictable and interesting (if those are actual opposites?)...
>
> Perhaps I am alone in this intuition/conception but the collective
> conversation that I apprehend *here* and in the larger world (exempli
> gratia: the news-stream/social-media milieu), narrative arcs of "truth"
> feel to me be not unlike least action paths or even Feynman path
> integrals.   The superposition of possible arcs/paths and something like
> probability/possibility/plausability fields (family of curves weighted by
> ???) within our (intersubjective ala Harari) realities.
>
> Listening to the "fake news media's" discussion of the "Faux (Fox/Murdoch)
> News Media"'s troubles with the courts over the Dominion Voting Machine
> ?Libel? suits gave me the distinct feeling that the former is (at the very
> least) attempting to enforce some sort of cause-effect rules on the
> news-sphere whilst the latter (Murdoch++) is trying to carve a shape in
> rhetoric space which fits a pre-determined grand narrative that fits some
> higher-order agenda/model.   Some of the circular logic exposed (where, for
> example, the Trump-team would make a claim which Faux folks would pick up
> and echo as "it has been suggested" and then Trump-echo would call-respond
> with "the media has reported" and thus the resonance in the echo chamber is
> triggered/tuned, feels like a deliberate challenge to the prohibition of
> causal loops in mechanics.
>
> Of course, they would (and not without some merit) claim the same of
> "everyone else" in media?   Meanwhile the binary distribution within our
> political spectrum suggests a tension between two equal but disparate
> cosmologies which attract ideation and opinion to those two "poles".
>
>
> References:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haroun_and_the_Sea_of_Stories
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel
>
> On 2/18/23 6:29 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
>
> I don't know what you mean by "mental stuff", of course.
>
> Well... In this context, I mean whatever the "psyche" part of panpsychism
> entails.
>
> Given that I don't believe in disembodied minds, I'm with you 100% on
> everything you do being "body stuff". Which, presumably, leads to the
> empirical question of what types of bodies do "psyche", and where those
> types of bodies can be found.
>
> You say further that: No. Neither the dirt nor I do "mental stuff".
>
> Well, now we have something to actually talk about then! Dave West,
> unsurprisingly, stepped in strongly on the side of dirt having psyche in at
> least a rudimentary form, I presume he would assert that you (Glen) do
> mental stuff too. Dave also asserts that his belief in panpsychism *does* affect
> how he lives in the world. Exactly to the extent that his way of living in
> the world is made different by the belief, panpsychism *is* more than
> just something he says.
>
> Steve's discussion about what it would feel like to be the bit of dirt
> trampled beneath a particular foot is a bit of a tangent - potentially
> interesting in its own right. His discussion of when he, personally, starts
> to attribute identity - and potentially psyche - to clumps of inanimate
> stuff seems directly on topic, especially as he too has listed some ways
> his behaviors change when he becomes engaged in those habits.
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 2:36 AM ⛧ glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Doubling down on the incredulity fallacy? OK. Yes. There is something it
>> is like to be trampled dirt. I don't know what you mean by "mental stuff",
>> of course. I don't do any mental stuff as far as I know. Everything I do is
>> inherently "body stuff". Maybe that's because I've experienced chronic pain
>> my whole life. Maybe some of you consistently live in a body free
>> experience? I've only experienced that a few times, e.g. running in a
>> fasted state. And I later suffered for that indulgent delusion.
>>
>> No. Neither the dirt nor I do "mental stuff". So you need a more concrete
>> question.
>>
>> On February 16, 2023 6:04:17 PM PST, Eric Charles <
>> eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >"an account of the seemingly analogous position of panpsychism"
>> >
>> >What is that more than something people say?
>> >
>> >Do *you* experience the dirt at your feet as having a mental life? If so,
>> >tell me about it: What is the dirt like when it seems to be doing mental
>> >stuff? What kind of mental stuff is it doing?
>> >
>> >If not: Have you seen anyone who earnestly thinks the dirt is doing
>> mental
>> >stuff? If so, what were *they* like? How was that belief pervasive in
>> their
>> >adjustments to the world? Based on your experiences with that person, how
>> >do you think your ways of acting in the world would change if you adopted
>> >such a position?
>> >
>> >
>> ><echarles at american.edu>
>> >
>> >
>> >On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 1:27 PM glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> I don't grok the context well enough to equivocate on concepts like
>> "have"
>> >> and "category of being". But in response to Nick's question: "What is
>> there
>> >> that animals do that demands us to invent categories to explain their
>> >> behavior?", my answer is "animals discretize the ambient muck". So if
>> >> categorization is somehow fundamentally related to discretization, then
>> >> animals clearly categorize in that sense.
>> >>
>> >> I mean, all you have to do is consider the frequencies of light the
>> >> animals' eyeballs do or don't see. That's two categories right there,
>> the
>> >> light they do see and the light they don't. Unless there's some
>> sophistry
>> >> hidden behind the question, the answer seems clear. Reflection on what
>> one
>> >> does and does not categorize isn't necessary. I could even claim my
>> truck
>> >> discretizes fluids ... those that make it seize up versus lubricate it,
>> >> those that it burns vs those that stop it cold. Etc. Maybe the
>> question is
>> >> better formulated as "What makes one impute categories on another?"
>> Clearly
>> >> my truck doesn't impute categories on squirrels.
>> >>
>> >> But Nick does follow that question with this "experience" nonsense. So
>> my
>> >> guess is there *is* some sophistry behind the question, similar to
>> EricC's
>> >> incredulous response to DaveW's question about phenomenological
>> composition
>> >> of experience(s). What I find missing in Nick's (and EricC's)
>> distillation
>> >> of experience monism is an account of the seemingly analogous position
>> of
>> >> panpsychism. Were I a scholar, I might take such work on myself. But
>> I'm
>> >> not and, hence, very much appreciate these distillations of dead white
>> >> men's metaphysics and will take what I can get. 8^D
>> >>
>> >> On 2/16/23 09:22, Steve Smith wrote:
>> >> > Might I offer some terminology reframing, or at least ask for some
>> >> additional explication?
>> >> >
>> >> >  1. I think "behaviours" would be all Nick's Martians *could*
>> observe?
>> >> They would be inferring "experiences" from observed behaviours?
>> >> >  2. When we talk about "categories" here, are we talking about
>> >> "categories of being"?  Ontologies, as it were?
>> >> >
>> >> > Regarding ErisS' reflections...   I *do* think that animals behave
>> *as
>> >> if* they "have categories", though I don't know what it even means to
>> say
>> >> that they "have categories" in the way Aristotle and his
>> legacy-followers
>> >> (e.g. us) do...   I would suggest/suspect that dogs and squirrels are
>> in no
>> >> way aware of these "categories" and that to say that they do is a
>> >> projection by (us) humans who have fabricated the (useful in myriad
>> >> contexts) of a category/Category/ontology.   So in that sense they do
>> NOT
>> >> *have* categories...   I think in this conception/thought-experiment we
>> >> assume that Martians *would* and would be looking to map their own
>> >> ontologies onto the behaviour (and inferred  experiences and
>> judgements?)
>> >> of Terran animals?
>> >> >
>> >> > If I were to invert the subject/object relation, I would suggest
>> that it
>> >> is "affordances" not "experiences" (or animals' behaviours) we want to
>> >> categorize into ontologies?  It is what things are "good for" that make
>> >> them interesting/similar/different to living beings.   And "good for"
>> is
>> >> conditionally contextualized.   My dog and cat both find squirrels
>> "good
>> >> for" chasing, but so too for baby rabbits and skunks (once).
>> >> >
>> >> > Or am I barking up the wrong set of reserved lexicons?
>> >> >
>> >> > To segue (as I am wont to do), it feels like this discussion
>> parallels
>> >> the one about LLMs where we train the hell out of variations on
>> learning
>> >> classifier systems until they are as good as (or better than) we
>> (humans)
>> >> are at predicting the next token in a string of human-generated tokens
>> (or
>> >> synthesizing a string of tokens which humans cannot distinguish from a
>> >> string generated by another human, in particular one with the
>> proverbial
>> >> 10,000 hours of specialized training).   The fact that or "ologies"
>> tend to
>> >> be recorded and organized as knowledge structures and in fact usually
>> >> *propogated* (taught/learnt) by the same makes us want to believe
>> (some of
>> >> us) that hidden inside these LLMs are precisely the same "ologies" we
>> >> encode in our myriad textbooks and professional journal articles?
>> >> >
>> >> > I think one of the questions that remains present within this group's
>> >> continued 'gurgitations is whether the organizations we have conjured
>> are
>> >> particularly special, or just one of an infinitude of superposed
>> >> alternative formulations?   And whether some of those formulations are
>> >> acutely occult and/or abstract and whether the existing (accepted)
>> >> formulations (e.g. Western Philosophy and Science, etc) are uniquely
>> (and
>> >> exclusively or at least optimally) capable of capturing/describing
>> what is
>> >> "really real" (nod to George Berkeley).
>> >> >
>> >> > Some here (self included) may often suggest that such formulation is
>> at
>> >> best a coincidence of history and as well as it "covers" a description
>> of
>> >> "reality", it is by circumstance and probably by abstract conception
>> ("all
>> >> models are wrong...") incomplete and in error.  But nevertheless still
>> >> useful...
>> >> >
>> >> > Maybe another way of reframing Nick's question (on a tangent) is to
>> ask
>> >> whether the Barsoomians had their own Aristotle to conceive of
>> >> Categories?   Or did they train their telescopes on ancient Greece and
>> >> learn Latin Lip Reading and adopt one or more the Greek's philosophical
>> >> traditions?  And then, did the gas-balloon creatures floating in the
>> >> atmosphere-substance of Jupiter observe the Martians' who had observed
>> the
>> >> Greeks and thereby come up with their own Categories.   Maybe it was
>> those
>> >> creatures who beamed these abstractions straight into the neural
>> tissue of
>> >> the Aristotelians and Platonists?   Do gas-balloon creatures even have
>> >> solids to be conceived of as Platonic?  And are they missing out if
>> they
>> >> don't?  Do they have their own Edwin Abbot Abbot?   And what would the
>> >> Cheela <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg> say?
>> >> >
>> >> > My dog and the rock squirrels he chases want to know... so do the
>> cholla
>> >> cactus fruits/segments they hoard in their nests!
>> >> >
>> >> > Mumble,
>> >> >
>> >> >   - Steve
>> >> >
>> >> > On 2/16/23 5:37 AM, Santafe wrote:
>> >> >> It’s the tiniest and most idiosyncratic take on this question, but
>> >> FWIW, here:
>> >> >> https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1520752113
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I actually think that all of what Nick says below is a perfectly
>> good
>> >> draft of a POV.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> As to whether animals “have” categories: Spend time with a dog.
>> >> Doesn’t take very much time.  Their interest in conspecifics is (ahem)
>> >> categorically different from their interest in people, different than
>> to
>> >> squirrels, different than to cats, different than to snakes.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> For me to even say that seems like cueing a narcissism of small
>> >> differences, when overwhelmingly, their behavior is structured around
>> >> categories, as is everyone else’s.  Squirrels don’t mistake acorns for
>> >> birds of prey.  Or for the tree limbs and house roofs one can jump
>> onto.
>> >> Or for other squirrels.  It’s all categories.  Behavior is an
>> operation on
>> >> categories.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I found it interesting that you invoked “nouns” as a framework that
>> is
>> >> helpful but sometimes obstructive.  One might just have said “words”.
>> This
>> >> is interesting to me already, because my syntactician friends will
>> tell you
>> >> that a noun is not, as we were taught as children, a “word for a
>> person,
>> >> place, or thing”, but rather a “word in a language that transforms as
>> nouns
>> >> transform in that language”, which is a bit of an obfuscation, since
>> they
>> >> do have in common that they are in some way “object-words”.  But from
>> the
>> >> polysemy and synonymy perspective, we see that “meanings” cross the
>> >> noun-verb syntactic distinction quite frequently for some categories.
>> >> Eye/see, ear/hear, moon/shine, and stuff like that.  My typologist
>> friends
>> >> tell me that is common but particular to some meanings much more than
>> >> others.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Another fun thing I was told by Ted Chiang a few months ago, which I
>> >> was amazed I had not heard from linguists, and still want to hold in
>> >> reserve until I can check it further.  He says that languages without
>> >> written forms do not have a word for “word”.  If true, that seems very
>> >> interesting and important.  If Chiang believes it to be true, it is
>> >> probably already a strong enough regularity to be more-or-less true,
>> and
>> >> thus still interesting and important.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Eric
>> >> >>
>> >> >>> On Feb 15, 2023, at 1:19 PM,<thompnickson2 at gmail.com>  <
>> >> thompnickson2 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> FWiW, I willmake every effort to arrive fed to Thuam by 10.30
>> >> Mountain.  I want to hear the experts among you hold forth on WTF a
>> >> cateogory actually IS.  I am thinking (duh) that a category is a more
>> or
>> >> less diffuse node in a network of associations (signs, if you must).
>> Hence
>> >> they constitute a vast table of what goes with what, what is
>> predictable
>> >> from what, etc.  This accommodates “family resemblance”  quite
>> nicely.  Do
>> >> I think animals have categories, in this sense, ABSOLUTELY EFFING YES.
>> Does
>> >> this make me a (shudder) nominalist?  I hope not.
>> >> >>> Words…nouns in particular… confuse this category business.  Words
>> >> place constraints on how vague these nodes can be.   They impose on the
>> >> network constraints to which it is ill suited.  True, the more my
>> >> associations with “horse” line up with your associations with “horse”,
>> the
>> >> more true the horse seems.  Following Peirce, I would say that where
>> our
>> >> nodes increasingly correspond with increasing shared experience, we
>> have
>> >> evidence ot the (ultimate) truth of the nodes, their “reality” in
>> Peirce’s
>> >> terms.  Here is where I am striving to hang on to Peirce’s realism.
>> >> >>> The reason I want the geeks to participate tomorrow is that I keep
>> >> thinking of a semantic webby thing that Steve devised for the Institute
>> >> about a decade ago.   Now a semantic web would be a kind of metaphor
>> for an
>> >> associative web; don’t associate with other words in exactly the same
>> >> manner in which experiences associate with other experiences.  Still, I
>> >> think the metaphor is interesting.  Also, I am kind of re-interested
>> in my
>> >> “authorial voice”, how much it operates like cbt.
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>>
>> --
>> glen ⛧
>>
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