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</style></head><body><div style="font-family:Arial;">do the magnets produce an altered state of consciousness, or just mess up the optic nerve? "Sparkles and rainbows" are a common aspect of LSD trips. How strong a magnet? Sounds like something I might try.</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;">davew</div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div><div>On Tue, Apr 7, 2026, at 9:28 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style="overflow-wrap:break-word;"><div class="qt-WordSection1"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I briefly collaborated with a staffer at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. She said that near the big magnets, vision goes to sparkles and rainbows. </span></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I think this experiment might not be a good idea, at least in the cause of understanding the scientific utility of metaphor?<br></span></p><div style="border-right-width:medium;border-right-style:none;border-right-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:medium;border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-left-width:medium;border-left-style:none;border-left-color:currentcolor;border-image-outset:0;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-top-width:1pt;border-top-style:solid;border-top-color:rgb(181, 196, 223);padding-top:3pt;padding-right:0in;padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:0in;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt;"><b><span style="color:black;"><span class="size" style="font-size:12pt;">From: </span></span></b><span style="color:black;"><span class="size" style="font-size:12pt;">Friam <friam-bounces@redfish.com> on behalf of Santafe <desmith@santafe.edu><br><b>Date: </b>Monday, April 6, 2026 at 7:08\u202fPM<br><b>To: </b>The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com><br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [FRIAM] Metaphor... and more...</span></span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Thanks Nick,</span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I will have to read your longer-form work. Your use of all this is so far from my own, and so far from any literature and user community that I work with or in, that I don\u2019t even know what you mean different words to be doing in your sentences, and thus what you believe yourself to be asserting. (If I could track that much, I could then come back to whether I think the assertions \u201cgo through\u201d, or under what analysis one would make such a judgment.) </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Clearly this is going to be a matter of just blanking my mind (giant magnetostimulation of the brain) and submerging in your writing for a while, to try to \u201cget a feel\u201d for your language usage. Then come back to these short forms and see if I can follow them any better.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Eric</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><br></span></p><blockquote style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt;"><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">On Apr 6, 2026, at 7:42, Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2@gmail.com> wrote:</span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">DES -- One urgent point. I asked George to look at our correspondence to see what I was missing. He caught one thing immediately "Fitness causes selection, selection causes fitness" is not necessarily a tautology nor do i think of it as such. Its a virtuous circle, or "spiral" so long as <b><i>selection and fitness can be independently known. </i></b></span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I apologise for wiring text that was open to that misinterpretation. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">N</span></p></div></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">On Sun, Apr 5, 2026 at 5:39\u202fAM Santafe <<a href="mailto:desmith@santafe.edu">desmith@santafe.edu</a>> wrote:</span></p></div><blockquote style="border-top-width:medium;border-top-style:none;border-top-color:currentcolor;border-right-width:medium;border-right-style:none;border-right-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:medium;border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-image-outset:0;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-top:0in;padding-right:0in;padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:6pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in;"><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Hi Nick,</span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I\u2019m kind of relieved that I posted \u201cI promise I really will shut up\u201d on Apr 1, before Gil\u2019s brief blast of exasperation, which I kind of get. I think I should keep my word, as much as possible without being obnoxious. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">At the same time, thank you for taking the time to reply, including what I actually wrote, and responding to it in-frame. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Your two papers are attached to the later email, too, so we have them. I will read if and as I am able. The abstracts sound like they make a much more normal reference to the routine work that people actually do, than many of the post-string here have (to me); so that is hopeful. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I tried a couple of times to come up with some kind of reply, and decided it is hopeless. There is a perfectly good language to address the problem that, after we have identified and characterized traits, and observed that sometimes they change frequencies in populations, we don\u2019t generally know at the outset whether there is something about the traits\u2019 functions in organisms\u2019 lives (in their population contexts) that is eligible to be a \u201ccause\u201d of that change in frequency. We would like to know, for which traits in what settings, variations in trait parameters result in variations in function performance that (through the vast noise of everything else that is going on too) poke through to result in changes in trait frequency. There are no tautologies in the statistical reduction that defines different components of change (among which one is fitness, though its definition is partly by convention), and there are no other problems than the ordinary problems of functional characterization and statistical analysis in figuring out which variations in trait parameters and functions correlate with changes in trait frequency robustly enough to be candidates for cause of the change in frequency. It\u2019s all so terribly ordinary and understandable.</span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Meanwhile, you have a program: to assert that there are some tautologies and some ambiguities etc. Therefore I understand that, since we can observe a field of people who get from problem statements to answers, by completely ordinary and conventional steps with standard methods, without tautologies, whatever those people are doing is simply irrelevant to your program.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I will admit, so that it doesn\u2019t just seem irritating, that at a half-dozen points below, I am sure that you are just throwing up verbal chaff and playing word games to try to make something that is actually completely ordinary and orderly \u201clook\u201d all mangled and messed up. But it doesn\u2019t look that way to me. At every one of these, I trip over some string of words that looks like complete nonsense, which doesn\u2019t make the idea we were on \u201clook\u201d like anything; it just veers away from the track of that idea to put a word game in its place. (An example: "success causes fitness, and that fitness causes success") It was after trying to call out two or three of these that I realized i need to just give up. I suspect you could follow an ordinary mathematical argument about as well as the next guy, and you just don\u2019t want to. Thus anything I try to reply will just yield another round with the same form as this one. I will add to irritating the list, which is what I wanted to cut away from doing earlier. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I appreciated your introduction of placeholders, and of course I am quite open to that kind of thing. Not so open to the Chalmers kind, which is defined as having _no_ added content from what our ordinary, understandable language, is already doing. I don\u2019t know why you think you see a non-Chalmers-like placeholder here; but okay.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">So, is it the English who say: Please Proceed.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I do hope you will be able to push through to the book you were writing. We accumulate all these unfinished efforts, and it is a shame if they can\u2019t get to some safe harbor in some output. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Eric</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><br></span></p><blockquote style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt;"><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">On Apr 4, 2026, at 14:23, Nicholas Thompson <<a href="mailto:thompnickson2@gmail.com">thompnickson2@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div><div><blockquote style="border-top-width:medium;border-top-style:none;border-top-color:currentcolor;border-right-width:medium;border-right-style:none;border-right-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:medium;border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-image-outset:0;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-top:0in;padding-right:0in;padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:6pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">DES -- I hate to drag you back into our den and maul you some more but your last post was fascinating to me and so akin to difficulties we have had with Elliott Sober and difficulties I have had understanding entropy (ugh) that I want to pursue them with you further </span></p></blockquote><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><b><i><span class="size" style="font-size:7.5pt;">--for me, \u201cfitness\u201d is a name given to (something like) the units (or dimension) in which reproductive success is measured, or quantified. Not sure \u201cunits\u201d is quite the right term, but the point is that it\u2019s about defining a quantification program for observed outcomes, or the model variables that we try to fit to them. I had taken the state of modern work to show that this is the only actual meaning the term was ever given.</span></i></b><b><i><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></i></b><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></p></div><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I am happy to have a variable with a name to represent that dimension. I just think "fitness" is an appalling name for it. Call it selectedness. Call it success. Just don't call it fitness or adaptedness or anything that might confuse a reader into thinking that you have any information about the morphological or behavioral synchrony of the organism with its environment. The essence of D's theory is that success causes fitness, and that fitness causes success. If one calls oneself a Darwinist it must be because those connections between the two ideas are empirical, not logical. </span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span><b><i><span class="size" style="font-size:7.5pt;">\u2014 are you two claiming otherwise; that my supposition is not at all the case? That there are biologists for whom there is some other meaning, instead of or in addition to the one I gave above, about being a measurement unit? </span></i></b><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Indeed, we are</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><b><i><span class="size" style="font-size:7.5pt;">Something like: \u201cfitness\u201d is a name for \u201cthe cause of reproductive success\u201d. As if to say: Well, there\u2019s this thing with the form of a name, so there must be something it names, that is a kind of causal force responsible for generating what we witness as reproductive success. And since there is one name, there must be some one kind of causal force it names.</span></i></b><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></p></div><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Well, if we do believe that the relative success of every genetic type of organism is systematic then it has a cause. Now I suppose that it's possible that each instance of success has a different cause, in which we would have reduced Darwin's theory to, "whatever causes an animal's sucess causes its success". But I think even FW would rate that a tautology. To escape that bind, we have to find some class of relations that leads to success which is other than the class that leads to failure. And to be a proper Darwinian you have to at least be able to entertain the possibility that selection would produce something other than fitness and vice versa. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><b><i><span class="size" style="font-size:7.5pt;">\u2014 to me, an interpretation like that is so bizarre, it would never have occurred to me to that there is anyone making it. </span></i></b><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Well, here we are. We stand before you. I have been making such a claim in print for 56 years, so either I have managed to pull the wool over many editors' and reviewr's eyes, or it has some resonance somewhere among biologists. I hope calling it "bizarre" isn't the first step toward putting your fingers in your ears and shrieking.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">. </span></p><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><b><i><span class="size" style="font-size:7.5pt;">It seems very similar to taking an expression like \u201celan vital\u201d, and saying that, since it has the shape of a name, there must be something it names. </span></i></b><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></p></div><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal">Well, exactly! The example I like to use is the "dormitive virtue"..Years ago, before the dinosaurs, Lipton and I wrote a paper in which we talked about such expressions that purport to be explanatory but which include a reference to the explanandum within the explanans as "recursive". (eg. life is caused by the Life Force) The dormitive virtue was a place-holder for what came to be known as the very specific chemical properties of morphine. The Moliere play makes fun of people who imagine that the assignment of a placeholder has solved the problem. We thought of these place holders as serving to keep the goal in sight while scientists looked for it. Science consists a lot in filling in or dividing up these place holders. The progress in the identification of the AIDS virus is a wonderful example. See, if tempted, <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fcommons.clarku.edu%2ffacultyworks%2f66%2f&c=E,1,k4G28ruXzTMikjk22fWt55DQZBrY8oTBaFPZetykCEmKkrdW7Zgm_InoVrTc91PCgHYC1XjdS7pzs2zz_HaX2PnsGuZtad3L3YiDf1g2E2bBiY5y9m0Lp_g,&typo=1">Comparative Psychology and the recursive nature of filter explanations</a><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></p><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><b><i><span class="size" style="font-size:7.5pt;">To me, those are strings of words that satisfy rules of syntax and that don\u2019t have any semantic referents at all. They may as well be Chomsky\u2019s \u201ccolorless green dreams\u201d or something. I would not have imagined that there was anything anyone expected, beyond the working out of the mechanics of lots of cases of how-lifecycles-play-out-in-contexts, which can fill out some vast taxonomy that has no singular \u201cessence\u201d underneath it. That could well be my lack of empathy for how many other people think, like my lack of empathy for their thoughts about God (along with my ignorance about who is in the world). </span></i></b><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Indeed. That would explain a lot. Please understand that I am a lifelong unbeliever. I am not even an atheist. My family had no interest in religion whatsoever. You might call me a religious Ignoramist. I have never been cuffed on the ears by nuns. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><b><i><span class="size" style="font-size:7.5pt;">\u2014 I guess, since there are people who continue to talk about Strong Emergence, and Philosophical Zombies, and who sound to me much like people who talk about God today, and maybe like people who would have talked about Elan Vital some generations ago, I should have right away imagined this reading of what you were writing.</span></i></b><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Again, that explains a lot of our difficulties. But I beg to suggest that there is a more generous reading. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><b><i><span class="size" style="font-size:7.5pt;">the above is what you were claiming, it would explain why my long Emily Litella-like replies seemed like a tiresome recital of what population geneticists already do (Nick\u2019s point that \u201call that would be left is EricS\u2019s 2a and 2b\u201d), which everybody already knows anyway, and which isn\u2019t interesting and wasn\u2019t to your point. So, were you claiming that there are biologists operating that way</span></i></b><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">? </span><b><i><span class="size" style="font-size:7.5pt;">And are there really biologists operating that way?y </span></i></b><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></p></div><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Indeed there are. They are called comparative biologists, comparative anatomists,comparative ethologists, comparative physiologists, anybody who studies the form of classes of organisms in relation to their circumstances. Natural design didn't get eliminated by Darwinism; it got partially, and incompletely and in some cases wrongly explained by it. Some effort needs to be expended in finding out the degree to which natural design actually accounts for natural selection and vice versa. Please see <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fcommons.clarku.edu%2ffacultyworks%2f67%2f&c=E,1,uEqHnsI2N6agATrwVIuvnLowDECLxZG4KT5Za_GJiyC2lUxcNNve9iY0ZctgPVn2cXHp3MIF_4h0exfyKRO9KdPS6nCz0uerbqjb5nNIWBw,&typo=1">Toward a Falsifiable Theory of Evolution</a> </span></p></div><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Nick</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">On Fri, Apr 3, 2026 at 2:17\u202fPM Nicholas Thompson <<a href="mailto:thompnickson2@gmail.com">thompnickson2@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span></p></div><blockquote style="border-top-width:medium;border-top-style:none;border-top-color:currentcolor;border-right-width:medium;border-right-style:none;border-right-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:medium;border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-image-outset:0;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-top:0in;padding-right:0in;padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:6pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in;"><div><blockquote style="border-top-width:medium;border-top-style:none;border-top-color:currentcolor;border-right-width:medium;border-right-style:none;border-right-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:medium;border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-image-outset:0;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-top:0in;padding-right:0in;padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:6pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">DES -- I hate to drag you back into our den and maul you some more but your last post was fascinting to me and so akin to difficulties we have had with Elliott Sober and difficulties I have had understnding entropy (ugh) that I want to pursue them with you further </span></p></blockquote><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div style="margin-left:30pt;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:7.5pt;">--for me, \u201cfitness\u201d is a name given to (something like) the units (or dimension) in which reproductive success is measured, or quantified. Not sure \u201cunits\u201d is quite the right term, but the point is that it\u2019s about defining a quantification program for observed outcomes, or the model variables that we try to fit to them. I had taken the state of modern work to show that this is the only actual meaning the term was ever given.</span><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></p></div><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">\u2014 are you two claiming otherwise; that my supposition is not at all the case? That there are biologists for whom there is some other meaning, instead of or in addition to the one I gave above, about being a measurement unit? Something like: \u201cfitness\u201d is a name for \u201cthe cause of reproductive success\u201d. As if to say: Well, there\u2019s this thing with the form of a name, so there must be something it names, that is a kind of causal force responsible for generating what we witness as reproductive success. And since there is one name, there must be some one kind of causal force it names.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">\u2014 to me, an interpretation like that is so bizarre, it would never have occurred to me to that there is anyone making it. It seems very similar to taking an expression like \u201celan vital\u201d, and saying that, since it has the shape of a name, there must be something it names. To me, those are strings of words that satisfy rules of syntax and that don\u2019t have any semantic referents at all. They may as well be Chomsky\u2019s \u201ccolorless green dreams\u201d or something. I would not have imagined that there was anything anyone expected, beyond the working out of the mechanics of lots of cases of how-lifecycles-play-out-in-contexts, which can fill out some vast taxonomy that has no singular \u201cessence\u201d underneath it. That could well be my lack of empathy for how many other people think, like my lack of empathy for their thoughts about God (along with my ignorance about who is in the world). </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">\u2014 I guess, since there are people who continue to talk about Strong Emergence, and Philosophical Zombies, and who sound to me much like people who talk about God today, and maybe like people who would have talked about Elan Vital some generations ago, I should have right away imagined this reading of what you were writing.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">If the above is what you were claiming, it would explain why my long Emily Litella-like replies seemed like a tiresome recital of what population geneticists already do (Nick\u2019s point that \u201call that would be left is EricS\u2019s 2a and 2b\u201d), which everybody already knows anyway, and which isn\u2019t interesting and wasn\u2019t to your point.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">So, were you claiming that there are biologists operating that way?</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">And are there really biologists operating that way? </span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">On Wed, Apr 1, 2026 at 5:15\u202fAM Santafe <<a href="mailto:desmith@santafe.edu">desmith@santafe.edu</a>> wrote:</span></p></div><blockquote style="border-top-width:medium;border-top-style:none;border-top-color:currentcolor;border-right-width:medium;border-right-style:none;border-right-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:medium;border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-image-outset:0;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-top:0in;padding-right:0in;padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:6pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in;"><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Can I ask one last question? after which I promise I really will shut up:</span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">The content of EricC\u2019s note below (about the key in a lock), reflecting back on things Nick said in the early posts about selection\u2019s being a tautology, which got me started digging a hole, have bothered me through the night, and made me wonder if I can understand how I have been missing both-of-y\u2019all\u2019s point. Was it something like the following:?</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">\u2014 for me, \u201cfitness\u201d is a name given to (something like) the units (or dimension) in which reproductive success is measured, or quantified. Not sure \u201cunits\u201d is quite the right term, but the point is that it\u2019s about defining a quantification program for observed outcomes, or the model variables that we try to fit to them. I had taken the state of modern work to show that this is the only actual meaning the term was ever given.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">\u2014 are you two claiming otherwise; that my supposition is not at all the case? That there are biologists for whom there is some other meaning, instead of or in addition to the one I gave above, about being a measurement unit? Something like: \u201cfitness\u201d is a name for \u201cthe cause of reproductive success\u201d. As if to say: Well, there\u2019s this thing with the form of a name, so there must be something it names, that is a kind of causal force responsible for generating what we witness as reproductive success. And since there is one name, there must be some one kind of causal force it names.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">\u2014 to me, an interpretation like that is so bizarre, it would never have occurred to me to that there is anyone making it. It seems very similar to taking an expression like \u201celan vital\u201d, and saying that, since it has the shape of a name, there must be something it names. To me, those are strings of words that satisfy rules of syntax and that don\u2019t have any semantic referents at all. They may as well be Chomsky\u2019s \u201ccolorless green dreams\u201d or something. I would not have imagined that there was anything anyone expected, beyond the working out of the mechanics of lots of cases of how-lifecycles-play-out-in-contexts, which can fill out some vast taxonomy that has no singular \u201cessence\u201d underneath it. That could well be my lack of empathy for how many other people think, like my lack of empathy for their thoughts about God (along with my ignorance about who is in the world). </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">\u2014 I guess, since there are people who continue to talk about Strong Emergence, and Philosophical Zombies, and who sound to me much like people who talk about God today, and maybe like people who would have talked about Elan Vital some generations ago, I should have right away imagined this reading of what you were writing.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">If the above is what you were claiming, it would explain why my long Emily Litella-like replies seemed like a tiresome recital of what population geneticists already do (Nick\u2019s point that \u201call that would be left is EricS\u2019s 2a and 2b\u201d), which everybody already knows anyway, and which isn\u2019t interesting and wasn\u2019t to your point.</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">So, were you claiming that there are biologists operating that way?</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">And are there really biologists operating that way? </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">As always, I appreciate whatever patience or indulgence, </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Eric</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><br></span></p><blockquote style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt;"><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">On Mar 31, 2026, at 15:47, Eric Charles <<a href="mailto:eric.phillip.charles@gmail.com">eric.phillip.charles@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I'm a bit confused here... </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">The initial dog pile on Nick seemed (to me) to have as one of its main points something like "Look, old man, once you formalize something mathematically we don't need to care what any of the words might mean or imply in any other context, it is just math, stop thinking that the words matter!" </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">And now there have been several posts by EricS, at least one by Glen, and I think Marcus and Frank are in there somewhere as well, claiming that the words are crucially important and we need to take them much more seriously. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">So.... where does that leave us? Is everyone now onboard with the metaphors mattering quite a bit? </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">I'll also note that "function" can't do the work on its own to explain evolution. We still need to know why some functions are favored by selection and others are not. EricS seemed to indicate that we assess "fit" by determining if animals are "happy".... but the metaphor of "fit" is like a key in a lock. To explain evolution you need the matching of form-and-function-to-a-particular-environment. That matching *sometimes* increases reproductive success, and *sometimes* the traits in question are hereditary. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Population genetics combined with field research can be very powerful along those lines, but the math of population genetics on its own, floating out in the ether, can't do it at all. </span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12pt;"><span style="color:rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Best,<br>Eric<br></span></span><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">On Tue, Mar 31, 2026 at 6:10\u202fAM Santafe <<a href="mailto:desmith@santafe.edu">desmith@santafe.edu</a>> wrote:</span></p></div><blockquote style="border-top-width:medium;border-top-style:none;border-top-color:currentcolor;border-right-width:medium;border-right-style:none;border-right-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:medium;border-bottom-style:none;border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-image-outset:0;border-image-repeat:stretch;border-image-slice:100%;border-image-source:none;border-image-width:1;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-top:0in;padding-right:0in;padding-bottom:0in;padding-left:6pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in;"><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Hi Nick,<br><br>Two smaller replies to what have become two sub-threads:<br><br>> On Mar 30, 2026, at 15:42, Nicholas Thompson <<a href="mailto:thompnickson2@gmail.com">thompnickson2@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> <br>> DES, EPC, FW<br>> <br>> So far as I understand, the argument flowing from Fisher makes no claims about the kind of trait that produces reproductive success other than that it is the kind that produces reproductive success. FW, if that's not a tautology, it's a pretty tight circle. <br><br>As usual, let\u2019s decamp to more neutral ground in the hope of having an ordinary negotiation.<br><br>Suppose that, in your overweening pursuit of the study of metaphor, you never noticed that there is a once/4-year gathering called The Olympics. Also never learned what any of its so-called \u201cevents\u201d are, what they are about, how they work, and how one differs from another. My hypothetical here is meant to define a condition of having \u201cvery little prior information\u201d about some phenomenon that we can, nonetheless, still reasonably unambiguously circumscribe.<br><br>But a quick inspection shows that a subset of the participants (who all together seem to be called \u201cathletes\u201d) are given metal disks and stand on some kind of 3-tiered podium, while other athletes do not. Being a statistician \u2014 a skill so helpful in the study of metaphor that it was worth taking the time out to learn \u2014 you immediately recognize that this is a kind of marking that can be used to partition the athletes. Taking notice, for the first time, of some of the conversation in the society around you, who seem not nearly so devoted to metaphor and thus have time to do other things, you gather that these marked people seem to be called \u201cwinners\u201d (or better, \u201cmedalists\u201d, this \u201cwinning\u201d thing is a finer sub-partition; I\u2019ll mis-use \u201cwinner\u201d to label the most salient marking for this little parable). It\u2019s handy to have such a term, for use in later sentences, so they become less tedious than the ones I have been typing so far. <br><br>You also note that while there is only one 3-tiered podium and metal-disk set per one \u201cevent\u201d, there seem to be many such distinct \u201cevents\u201d, so some kind of event name gives you a second kind of marking you can put on the athletes. Moreover, interestingly, the \u201cevent\u201d label is again a proper partition (or at least seems to be; this one is less cut-and-dried than the observation that everyone carrying a metal disk is not someone not-carrying a metal disk, so we are wary; the event label seems to be a bit more abstract): every athlete is in some \u201cevent\u201d set, and it appears that no athlete is in more than one of them. As with the \u201cwinners\u201d label, you learn that there are conventionalized names for the events, and you can find a look-up table if you need one or another of them. <br><br>Now, I can make a list of statements that seem to be of two different kinds (scare quotes here indicate my statisticians\u2019 attribute labels; in my condition of very little prior knowledge, I don\u2019t claim I have any more semantics for them than I listed above):<br><br>1. Every \u201cwinner" is someone marked as having won something.<br><br>2a. Every winner in the \u201cgymnastics\u201d event is shorter than the average over all the participants;<br><br>2b. Every winner in the \u201chigh jump\u201d event is taller than the average over all the participants; <br><br>\u2026 (we could presumably look for other such summary statistics that seem to be unusually regular and to carry different values in different \u201cevents\u201d).<br><br>I would say sentence 1 is \u201ca tautology\u201d, or close enough to it for the purpose of this negotiation. Maybe I should use EricC\u2019s good, and slighly more flexible term, \u201ctruism\u201d.<br><br>Now you may write a protest email: But the sentences 2a, 2b, have not told me what constitutes \u201ccompetition\u201d in these \u201cevents\u201d: \u201cgymnastics\u201d and \u201chigh jump\u201d, and given me the rule book for scoring them. Okay. And they didn\u2019t cook your dinner and do the dishes afterward either. Life is hard. And more a propos (breaking my little 4th wall here), the path to a fully-adequate \u201ccausal\u201d theory through statistical inference is like the Road to Heaven: narrow, tortuous, and inadequate to many things one can rightly want to know. That\u2019s what other sciences are then for. <br><br>But if you claim: The sentences 2a and 2b didn\u2019t give me _any information_ about these \u201cevents\u201d, and couldn\u2019t have, because they are tautologies, I would say you made an error. Of course, the real Nick would not say that, so we are all safe.<br><br>The above parable is, of course, about selection. I didn\u2019t say anything about heredity. But if I had happened to note that height is a fairly heritable trait, I could have spun out a much longer story, and defined some Bayesian-posterior conditional probabilities, which would be shown to have properties such as: the posterior probability, under various ceteris paribus conditions, for a child of a high-jump winner to turn out another high-jump winner is higher than for that child to turn out a gymnastics winner, and so forth. The amalgamation of both of those stories would go in the direction of Fisher\u2019s fundamental theorem. It would leave out all the stuff that Fisher left out of emphasis in his mad pursuit of his covariance term as an analog to the thermodynamic 2nd law (a non-valid analogy, as it turns out to be easy to show), and that Price included didactically (and here, to EricC\u2019s answer): that I didn\u2019t even mention that the tall people might get drafted into wars and put into an infantry to fire rifles over tall dijks, while the short people might be drafted into Special Forces and sent on missions to attack through underground tunnels, and so the number of survivors could depend on many factors about which war their country had started, in what theater, and against what opposition, etc. These are the world of everything-else that Fisher lumped together into \u201cdeterioration of the environment\u201d, as Steve Frank (and I think also Price) lays out. They are probably not well-analogized to \u201cmutation\u201d, but in genetics, mutation also goes into the same bin in the Price equation \u2014 _outside_ the term of Fisher\u2019s fundamental theorem \u2014 as the \u201cdeterioration\u201d effects. The accounting identity is flexible enough that we don\u2019t need analogies to use it; we can formulate a version for whatever statistics our phenomenon-of-interest supplies.<br><br>Anyway; at issue: Seriously, do we have a problem in scientific work, of people being unable to gain partial knowledge about phenomena through sentences of the kinds 2a, 2b, because they can\u2019t tell the difference between those and sentence 1? In the world where I live, I don\u2019t see evidence for this mistake.<br><br>Eric<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..<br>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br>Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,GvQhgG8mgl44zu_Tqszk_wQFcC3LBswQyBsmnoa7umwcI4cM2jGPGmAYotJwNMri0nXMbYayX6uZw5iDa5Mn0zM5Lzi9_LPGwP2Q6dG2zkm1Zw,,&typo=1">https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br>to (un)subscribe <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,23DEBEu6zm1j58j5JsswXw4R4hnyuhIceP4fdD1lMWDKru8V9CE3qD4-RYjtV5Jy9hfTf9uHOrhrlBi_RdYMT7jsteJtGiX2nEMNJisxFedZstuD_29M3FA,&typo=1">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br>FRIAM-COMIC <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,Ec4s1UwqPKENLyqkHX4Ib_R7EzxFYgc2j7jZdKdzIhORPykt1347aKvaSNnoCQ4Arvb6m2_GLwAwKSl29d-U5DrlMczDc4AHiyyrX-KaGBCrMK9RdKapkw,,&typo=1">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a><br>archives: 5/2017 thru present <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,wWOjZ0Q8WKeZG4U9_UBc_a11JtFDvedQPCTS8FL1Usmbm4F-EJO5IWv_Ignpmf4vTC3CO23cIKVFR_FtMZC8DWD4hyxlN0c7hdOfez8KEw,,&typo=1">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a><br> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a></span></p></blockquote></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - 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Thompson</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Clark University</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><a href="mailto:nthompson@clarku.edu">nthompson@clarku.edu</a></span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson&c=E,1,TtGHguBztcaI183g6Goerj-O4VoUmgxpx6RFwy76dnUtcD6dMcEs2GfRLne1FYCYIv9JZQ_Qlp0DYwPIxqwUF0P5yyaODACw5wXNyxIS_4NA3OoABA1XdQ,,&typo=1">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson</a></span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fsubstack.com%2f%40monist&c=E,1,mMVE-osMfLMKveVRGsDNOLbCQxE2gtCfa9lLV-tXT5ooNLpQD3mqsdWZrYkDx7mKJDcf7XYJbAAs76SMkAt7fhk6zh8pI_xm2uaiDg2olbukzFktpA,,&typo=1">https://substack.com/@monist</a></span></p></div></div></div></blockquote></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span><br></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><br><span class="qt-gmailsignatureprefix">--</span></span></p><div><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Nicholas S. Thompson</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Clark University</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><a href="mailto:nthompson@clarku.edu">nthompson@clarku.edu</a></span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson&c=E,1,2XwwB39XAWBxm8sZIiJJtQaGopoq86JnxTvN46gGqo6aH0noWqqKl_l7rB_k-DozfW1XYaJks5IPwIsYhgQEFcMMYaST1TtrgzyaPODraxU,&typo=1">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson</a></span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fsubstack.com%2f%40monist&c=E,1,svFJjYNZT04uLonFV0yujfOyRi6wCR5qc-O348ai4iwT5_F08j6oi7TW8PPCmquF6PKjGNjXrIdHlZlDzzHj1-5A3toxXWZa5j7dj8mSyCtOtir_evUN4QOA5A,,&typo=1">https://substack.com/@monist</a></span></p></div></div></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - 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. .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..<br>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br>Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,EHRAq7ghLpjsl4ZHF55qmSa36UhxkealN7ABfO5qkV1J2Mu-lYC4DrN5c9FnHwPRLggzrNN6rWaSOsNed8iBIyLpQVXv1Rorh78hIsygsvEtQ-gJ03xn58aZUZ2Y&typo=1">https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br>to (un)subscribe <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,CPvtQP2Uq9O6hx6OoaGqvcOng_hflp90R4THZAMnk-bf2VdAlQHEaFMMukttoZR2uyYsZgR26YJosoJyZ-dw7iTGPHXyIAlnuaqMN8_mLVj8za6HIQln1mmHQapE&typo=1">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br>FRIAM-COMIC <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,b3AvXhVEy1N77hAdXidLqY4OnlxMl_fkKC4MfVp9DHPWwtZDZjxApEeZrUcZw35Dve69osD9oJEpNlPcXDkCs7aZTCrlkMPel65x03DIYwaqmCcXTc5c&typo=1">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a><br>archives: 5/2017 thru present <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,eFxPkHDLGdpdeTO-gztrhV4LEU-uCg8Vl8HgGV-NYUbjcqSv9dEjbcOW599M-ZdEWWYP_ahE2rpzPG6T4mNxVaoyagEc53ho0qfIezO1GwnGWEy0i95YVw,,&typo=1">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a><br> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a></span></p></blockquote></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"></span><br></p></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><br><span class="qt-gmailsignatureprefix">--</span></span></p><div><div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Nicholas S. Thompson</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">Clark University</span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><a href="mailto:nthompson@clarku.edu">nthompson@clarku.edu</a></span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson&c=E,1,yOlkmrrUeTaGeYex3-BP2up_KTKEECrDeXyMl2bn9HMBnlqmOWOhGvMQOKYLoybbMqLzqnZSs7-_jUa1hkV7hkzl30kqZYwyMpt1XgLahOOdGMUu_KCS&typo=1">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson</a></span></p></div><div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"><a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fsubstack.com%2f%40monist&c=E,1,sECLaBy8NN4JIxn0K_XdKJaqDL_5f-DBJjVXY18AdRfpb1OgG3a0kH415SIPlY-o8cIJxjTizTCnZ6jKbQKh39BkP19S9307-0f-Ic2zdY6d&typo=1">https://substack.com/@monist</a></span></p></div></div></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;">.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..<br>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br>Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,tC0PdYiCVSRc7b8jz4x7Yig5Hz71QYRfF3irlQEjCQChVMEQeyRN9YpFygqtdMjjNaAY26D2u5JvjHK-zYJYexEHINcvJUeaY1w-_Oh9zuU78r-Vy2mwuJHIdvnH&typo=1<br>to (un)subscribe https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,2jJpuVLI2AmmQBLt5lXMu7iYyu1XmT5ctf5oDB0lgfOJhgZFy9kEb5BrFx8O8jEnVxJiV8UKNrvg45SI5-G0cNgA8zmL9lA54oNbx1TwbTkm0RE,&typo=1<br>FRIAM-COMIC https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,YtDpEX1fabSs1AlCN26XsY-EWjggWd8DwKaaGy4-VIPf0iFrJLBmyul8mQ5A7Q2Btig_DA8y8zKiI4bE9mWoTBg_21KyKki9nm5aCZijj-OY-rl5iliL&typo=1<br>archives: 5/2017 thru present https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,NvWsaA57CgBqzhKbNfM7nTbeUEIi3Nz3UaZ__wXB6K9DGDMn3mhCOKtx-Y5A9I84BYiPEgB3aTVYkxRGfBJEFfhZoK6HEIhqbrDn_FY5&typo=1<br> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</span></p></div></blockquote></div><p class="qt-MsoNormal"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p></div></div><div>.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..</div><div>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv</div><div>Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom <a href="https://bit.ly/virtualfriam">https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</a></div><div>to (un)subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a></div><div>FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com</a>/</div><div>archives: 5/2017 thru present <a href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a></div><div> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com</a>/</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><b>Attachments:</b></div><ul><li>smime.p7s</li></ul></blockquote><div style="font-family:Arial;"><br></div></body></html>