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<p>EricC -<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I think your points, especially about
the limits of models, are spot on. The "utility" caveat in the
"models" assertion *does* capture what makes a "model right as a
model", what makes a model "right" in your sense is it's
utility. </div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">The extra level of indirection
explicated in your observation that we are not (only) modeling the
artifact but the designer/maker of the artifact is also useful.
<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">As I am wont to do, I have a couple of
my own anecdotal experiences to share:</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">
<ol>
<li>I muck around with (repair or modify) most everything I use
in my life. It is a habit that serves me well sometimes but
not always... I *implicitly* have a model of what these
artifacts were designed to do, though sometimes I discover I'm
simply "using them wrong" when I think they are malfunctioning
or are "poorly designed". I rarely *personally* try to
figure out what the designer was intending explicitly (read
the manual, research the product domain literature? bah!) but
when I *do*, I bump up against the limits we are discussing
regularly. Even when it is documented explicitly what is
intended, I am left with puzzles posed *by* the artifact and
it's functioning at my hand. Since a lot of the tech I muck
with is vintage (right now, a 1979 Homelite chainsaw) there is
a lot of practice/lore available on the internet up to and
including other owners of the same/similar model with oodles
more experience than I have. I have yet to encounter someone
who actually designed 2 stroke engines of that vintage, but a
lot of the old timers who were in the business of
selling/repairing them IN 1979 have good insights.</li>
<li>I have been mucking around in the literature of
pre/a-historic human cultures of late. The
archaelogical/anthropologicl literature is *fraught* with
"wrong" and "sometimes useful" models of these humans and with
yet another level of indirection, "cultures" based on the
artifacts that survived these millenia. <br>
</li>
</ol>
<p>To support your basic point: "but we can try!", We DO try and
while it is limited in the limit, it is not entirely
fruitless. My myriad home(stead) systems work (to some degree)
as designed or re-designed under my mucking hamfists, and I
believe that up to herky-jerky progress, we DO approach a higher
and higher fidelity understanding of long-dead people and
cultures. In particular, my interest has been in the
*differences* between the other near-modern hominids (e.g.
Neanderthal/Devosinian) apparent long-term stability compared to
Homo Sapien's ability to modify our environment leading to a
very abrupt and brief spike (the Anthropocene) in the geological
record which will someday (if there is anyone to inspect it).</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAEYGzMCvxRpd362FrrMD2YMxRTzNU1AXKgzCVzVsN3GS==nEhQ@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr">Hmm..... not sure where to go with Glen &
Steve's responses.....
<div><br>
</div>
<div>"we can't reverse engineer a builder's intention from the
artifact."</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Well.... but we can attempt to... with the same limitations
as attempts to understand anything else. Like, if all we do is
go around slinging Descarte-styled "Yeah, but are you SURE!"
after literally every statement anyone ever makes, that might
be a good hobby, but it doesn't really get you anywhere. We
can certainly use systematic ways to probe the systems based
on various hypotheses, and thereby increase our confidence....
just like trying to figure out anything else in the world. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>"All models are wrong (though some may be useful)."</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>That's just a weird linguistic game, right? A model is a
model, not the thing being modeled. True enough, and worth
reminding people of every so often. But that doesn't mean it
is "wrong" as a model. A model is RIGHT if it
accurately captures the INTENDED aspects of the target
phenomenon... because that's what being a good model entails. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So, we COULD, potentially, accurately know a builder's
intentions after sufficient examination of an artifact or set
of artifacts. Also, we could be wrong. And our internal model
of the builder isn't actually the builder, but that doesn't
necessarily mean our model is wrong, as a model. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Dec 2, 2021 at 11:21
AM Steve Smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>EricC/Glen -</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>I'm glad we agree. I made the same points here:
<a href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/2021-November/090981.html" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/2021-November/090981.html</a>
<a href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/2021-November/090983.html" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/2021-November/090983.html</a>
To reiterate, we can't reverse engineer a builder's intention from the artifact.</pre>
</blockquote>
We can't mind read (even our own).<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre> To go even further, we can't even do a *complete* job of characterizing the aspects of a thing, the aspects of environments, or the relations between them.</pre>
</blockquote>
All models are wrong (though some may be useful).<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre> Parallax is needed across all scales and in both directions. Polyphenism is parallax on the thing. Robustness is parallax on the environment. And counterfactuals are parallax on their coupling. </pre>
</blockquote>
<p>All systems (existing within the same light-cone) are
"nearly decomposable" ?<br>
</p>
<p> Herb Simon Sez: <a
href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1909285"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.jstor.org/stable/1909285</a><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>One of the attractive qualities of modal realism is that it addresses both consistency (through concrete possible worlds) and completeness (through counterpart theory) in positing and testing various models. The problem becomes one of discovering which world you inhabit *from the data*, not from whatever abstracted models you may prefer.</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Lewis's <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">Modal Realism</a>
is a new one on me, but very interesting framing. Only
skimming the Wikipedia Article on the topic leaves me with
only enough information to be dangerous... so I am
refraining from rattling on about all of my reactions to
it's implications (for me) and in particular some of the
objections listed there to his theory. From this thin
introduction I think I find Yagasawa's extension of
possible worlds being distributed on a modal dimension
rather than isolated space-time structures (yet) more
compelling/useful?<br>
</p>
<p>And what would <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsroman"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">Candide</a> have
to say about this?<br>
</p>
<p> <br>
</p>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>On 12/1/21 6:35 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Me -> We've imputed in all cases. Certainly we can assume artificial systems were designed for a purpose, but we still don't know what that purpose is without imputing a model onto that system. And, in both cases, we could proceed to experiment with the system, in order to test the predictions of the imputed model and increase our confidence that we have imputed correctly. The ability to do these things does not distinguish between the two types of system. There are long and respected scientific traditions using experimental methods to gain confidence in our understanding of why certain systems were favored by natural selection, i.e., to determine the manner in which they help the organism better fit its environment.
Me -> Well.... it might be reification in some sense, but that term usually implies inaccuracy, which we cannot know in this case without experimentation. Even with a system we designed ourselves, where we might have a lot of insight into why we designed the system the way we did, we certainly don't have perfect knowledge. All we have there is a model of our own behavior to impute off of. Once again, this doesn't clearly differentiate the two situations. In all of these situations it is a mistake to uncritically reify our initial intuitions about the system's purpose.
</pre>
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