<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
Glen -<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:091a1790-d07e-3c30-c3cc-22ed0533d812@gmail.com">On
4/10/19 1:34 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://sites.google.com/site/markshirey/ideas/golden-rule-and-prisoner-s-dilemma">https://sites.google.com/site/markshirey/ideas/golden-rule-and-prisoner-s-dilemma</a>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Excellent article! Thanks. Is it actually an article by Sagan?
Or a blog post by Shirey?
<br>
</blockquote>
I parse it as a blog post by Shirey which is composed of 3 included
articles (I believe) 1) Dear Abby; 2) Carl Sagan; 3) Wendy Grossman,
though I didn't fact-check if the included text is accurate. The
bulk of it is attributed to Sagan. Oh if only TBL had been more
true to Xanadu!<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:091a1790-d07e-3c30-c3cc-22ed0533d812@gmail.com">
In any case, the "Tin Rule" targets my confusion well, because
it's modal, using 1 rule for 1 context and another rule for
another context. <br>
</blockquote>
I don't think of it as modal (though it is in the precise
presentation offered) as much as dependent on an additional
variable: social or genetic distance.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:091a1790-d07e-3c30-c3cc-22ed0533d812@gmail.com"> What I
don't understand is why anyone would even think in terms of fixed
rules to begin with. The concept of Universal Income is fantastic
and I'd gladly give up a large portion of my salary to support it.
But, like all these XYZ Rule siblings (ancestors?) of Kant's
Categorical Imperative, they seem to imply a STATIC or at least
high inertially stable equilibrium ... something stable enough to
make a "good" rule yesterday remain a "good" rule today.
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>As a modeler/simulant, you know the answer to your own question:
"all models are wrong, some are useful"? I'm not sure what the
threshold (quality or quantity) you would put on when a "game's
rules" are no longer fixed. I suspect most if not all of your
code is not only finite in length but is not self-modifying?
These would be fixed, if often very complex, rules?</p>
<p>I wonder if you are distinguishing Finite and Infinite Games (in
the sense of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games">Carse</a>)
or more Static V Dynamic balance?</p>
<p>I also tend to treat these "moral rules" as heuristics, as
rules-of-thumb. I don't spend a lot of time considering the
exceptions to rules like the 10 commandments, but believe that
there are circumstances when I might Kill or Covet a Wife or
Borrow and not Return something without undue guilt or collapse of
the society I live in.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:091a1790-d07e-3c30-c3cc-22ed0533d812@gmail.com">
I don't know what world(s) you people live in. But my world has
never been that stable or well-defined.</blockquote>
Is this not a matter of perspective? If I wrote my memoir, some
would find my life's arc that of a veritable pinball careening off
of a series of locales, jobs, partners, ideologies while others
might find the streamlined arcs within it. In fact, I am editing my
partner's memoirs right now for her and find the challenge to be
precisely that... how to present the data (anecdotal factoids) in a
way that preserves those collisions whilst fitting (some of) them to
various (spliney) arcs, whilst still not overfitting or cherry
picking (too much)?<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:091a1790-d07e-3c30-c3cc-22ed0533d812@gmail.com"> This
is the origin of my question: Why (or "what canalizes" for Gary
8^) people to expect their world to treat them well? Why do
people feel like their lives should be "pain free"? Why do people
think they don't deserve to die starving in dirty streets? Etc.
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>This seems to often be the domain of religion, even the
pseudo-religion of "secular humanism". I would claim that as soon
as you introduce the idea of "deserve" (even in the negative), you
have introduced something very much like a religious framework.
Being a society deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, we
inherit a LOT of "deserves" and "deserve-nots" and "shalls" and
"shants" from that tradition, even if it is encoded in political
or social organizations. I myself, despite being raised nearly
Agnostic and practicing as a (mild) Athiest am fascinated with the
Judeo-Christian ideal of Divine Grace, independent of an
anthropomorphised father-figure. In the spirit of JFK's "Ask
Not" speech, I'm more interested in what I can do to make the
world a "better" place (for all, though probably biased as with
the tin-rule) than I am in how to manipulate others into making my
own local "place" better for me personally. <br>
</p>
<p>I think this is where our democracy falls short, too often
neglecting the basis of citizenship it is (presumed to be?) built
upon. It is the duality of *rights* and *responsibilities* in a
group that transcends simple kinship and possibly geopolitics. We
have become overly focused on "what can (should) my country do for
me"... and I say that as someone whose instincts as an
individualist are *strong*. I'm not saying I *can't* withdraw
from society and make (some level of) sense of myself as an
individual or a member of a small(ish) group, but rather that I
see benefits in *choosing* to throw in with a much larger group.
I suppose, referencing back to the start of this discussion,
*softening* the tin-rule, or *expanding the scope* of me/mine to
be more inclusive with a *possible* goal of globalism or even
pan-conscioussness-ism?</p>
<p>I wonder if some of the nostalgia for "Nationalism" isn't rooted
in the advantage gained when we transcended kinship or tribalism
or regionalism, but then abberrated into the belief that
xenophobic responses to "other" are not just positive but
*necessary*? Conflating "having good friends" and "it is good to
have a well-identified enemy"?<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:091a1790-d07e-3c30-c3cc-22ed0533d812@gmail.com">
What mechanism is responsible for these patterns of expectation,
given (what seems to me) a co-evolutionary milieu far from
equilibrium? Is it simply Hebbian/reinforcement learning, an
embodied type of (false) induction?</blockquote>
I think this ties back into the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma and
your point about "why rules?". I think you are asking something
more profound or more subtle than I am apprehending here. In the
language you are hinting at, I think maybe there is a *coherence*
advantage in "thinking one deserves", just as I believe there are
*some* (group?) survival advantages to over-estimating one's
abilities. Or perhaps the true advantage is from a group having a
distribution of members from pessimist to optimist?<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:091a1790-d07e-3c30-c3cc-22ed0533d812@gmail.com"> I'm
skeptical because of your (Steve) question about the unreasonable
efficacy of mathematics in modeling the world. Your mention of
negentropy in this thread seems spot on.
<br>
<br>
But, like the Tin Rule, whatever answer is implied by such
concepts must be at least modal, if not something more
sophisticated like Aristotle's separation of causes (and/or
Rosen's idea that some types of cause can be closed while the
others remain open). We're not looking for something as simple as
reinforcement learning. We're looking for principles of the
universe robust to ... something yet fragile to something else.
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>I may have to re-read this paragraph when I've taken a break
(maybe a nap!?) as I taste strong hints of profound/subtle in it,
but am not quite getting the full implications. Or maybe you can
elaborate/elucidate, or maybe someone else will respond to this
particlarly... I need more parallax?</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:091a1790-d07e-3c30-c3cc-22ed0533d812@gmail.com">
<br>
<br>
On 4/10/19 1:34 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">One of you said:
<br>
<br>
<br>
*/and I can't help but wonder *why* individuals are so
entitled to
<br>
think they deserve anything at all other than the opportunity
to exist
<br>
... if even that./*
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
I didn't say it but I will defend it. Probably in one (or two)
of my
<br>
idiosyncratic ways:
<br>
<br>
1. I believe this was presented as more of a deep existential
point
<br>
rather than a progressive social one. E.G.: "Does this
rock, the
<br>
planet earth or for that matter *any planet* *deserve* an
<br>
opportunity to exist?"
<br>
2. Even as a progressive social point, I think it is critical
to notice
<br>
that "what one deserves" is not commutative with "what a
given
<br>
society might choose to extend".
<br>
<br>
It would seem that "the Golden Rule" is reflexive but I contend
that "Do
<br>
unto others because you think others will and should (be
required to?)
<br>
reciprocate in kind" is not the same as "Do unto others as a way
to
<br>
participate in forming a desireable collective ethos which
supports a
<br>
cultural milieu in which I believe I would enjoy a favorable
<br>
existence". I believe that "the Golden Rule"'s *gold* is in
emergence.
<br>
<br>
Here is an interesting blog post on the topic of metal-metaphor
rules
<br>
(golden, brazen, iron, etc.) and the iterated prisoner's
dilemma.
<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://sites.google.com/site/markshirey/ideas/golden-rule-and-prisoner-s-dilemma">https://sites.google.com/site/markshirey/ideas/golden-rule-and-prisoner-s-dilemma</a><br>
<br>
and of course the ever-popular variation on Tit-for-Tat: MOTH
;/
<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/My-Way-or-the-Highway%3A-a-More-Naturalistic-Model-of-Joyce-Kennison/5ab1a937d62363f3816c6b80a53aba5730ef5806">https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/My-Way-or-the-Highway%3A-a-More-Naturalistic-Model-of-Joyce-Kennison/5ab1a937d62363f3816c6b80a53aba5730ef5806</a><br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">*//*
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Lurking in the back caves of my liberal bleeding heart lurks a
troll
<br>
who responds badly to "entitlement" and its close relative
"victimhood."
<br>
<br>
Every entitlement enjoyed by one person relies on an
obligation taken
<br>
on by others. So the conversation should start with deciding
what
<br>
obligations we want to take on so as to afford a reasonable
sense of
<br>
safety and protection for others. I happen to think that I,
and my
<br>
children, and grandchildren will be happier there are basic
supports
<br>
to limit poverty, disease, and despair in the population
around us.
<br>
And, I am also glad when I think that those supports will be
available
<br>
for me and mine, should they become necessary. But is there
a "moral
<br>
hazard", here? Will I drive less cautiously because I have
automobile
<br>
insurance, smoke more and drink more Pepsi because I have
health
<br>
insurance, spend more freely because there will be food
stamps? I
<br>
suppose there's data on that, somewhere.
<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br>
============================================================
<br>
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
<br>
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
<br>
to unsubscribe
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a>
<br>
archives back to 2003: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/</a>
<br>
FRIAM-COMIC <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a> by Dr. Strangelove
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>