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<body><div style="font-family:Arial;">Given an "experiencer":<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">- what is directly "experienced" is apparently randomly moving dots.<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">- what is "interpreted" from that experience (a kind of meta-experience) are 'triangles', 'squares', 'stars', and 'prisms'.<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">- every experiencer's behavior will be grounded on the interpretations, not the 'raw data'. In an important way this makes the patterns 'more real' than the data.<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">- if two independent experiencers could occupy the exact same observational point, they might experience the same interpretations. Open question because they could not occupy the same observational point at the same time.<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">- if we could devise a 'language' that would allow us to say that, "my equilateral triangles are identical to your slightly isosceles triangles plus Factor X," we could say that we are seeing the same patterns / making the same interpretations.<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">- are triangles, squares, stars, and prisms, the only possible interpretations/experiences? if so why? <b>One</b> possibility is anthropomorphic in nature - they are the only possible patterns that an observer configured as a human being can see. This answer would seem to weaken the case for the 'reality' of the patterns vis-a-vis the reality of the dots. <b>Two</b>, the patterns are akin to Platonic 'ideals', in which case they are real, but in a sense that forces a kind of dualism.<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">- how valid is the statement, "every experiencer's behavior will be grounded on the interpretations, not the 'raw data'." I would argue for validity, which raises some real problems when you are dealing with 12 trillion dots instead of twelve. I would seem to mandate the construction of "models" based on some set of "primitive" interpretations/patterns. It would seem that some kind of constraints are necessary to build 'orderly' models. If so, then the constraints are interpretations (meta-expriences) in the same fashion as for the "primitives" and raise the same kind of questions — are the 'structures' constraining the models the only possible ones?<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">- of course, a good Buddhist epistemologist would argue that you can transcend the "patterns" and behave in accordance with the 'raw data' but few on this list will be interested in that.<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">just a start ...<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br></div>
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<div>On Sat, Jan 12, 2019, at 12:23 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">Wow. It's all those things at once! <span class="font" style="font-family:"Old English Text MT""></span></span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Old English Text MT""> </span></span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"><b><i><u><span class="font" style="font-family:"Old English Text MT""><span class="size" style="font-size:22pt">REALLY?!!!!!</span></span></u></i></b></span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">What a great example!</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">Let me try and put it into words. The nominalist would like to say “There is no real pattern there, it just depends on how you want to look at it.” The realist would like to say, “Nonsense. The patterns appear when you take into account the point of view of the observer. Anybody who cares to take that point of view, adopt that procedure, etc., will see each pattern. They are real patterns.” </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">How do you understand it, Dave?</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">Nick</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">Nicholas S. Thompson</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">Clark University</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">-----Original Message-----<br>From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Prof David West<br>Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2019 11:53 AM<br>To: friam@redfish.com<br>Subject: [FRIAM] models, reality, etc.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">This popped up elsewhere and I thought the FRIAM group might find it interesting. I had not heard of "statistical equivalence" before. The GIF recalled to mind previous conversations about Reality (which is "real:" the dots, the triangles, the squares, ...?); models; interpretations (ala Copenhagen); even Nick's Natural Design.</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">davew</span></span><br></p></div>
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