[FRIAM] IS: Rhetoric in scientific arguments WAS: FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

[Nick Thompson]

Dear Glen, 

 

I guess I disagree with you on what you write here in every conceivable way.  But I love you like a brother, so there's some local coherence, for ya' .  

 

Some larding below. 

 

Please stay well, 

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of gepr
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2017 10:40 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] IS: Rhetoric in scientific arguments WAS: FW: Fractal discussion Landscape-bird songs

 

Well, OK. However, you already know that anything anyone ever says is and can only be from their perspective. 

[NST==>Well, then perspective divides out of the equation, no?  “What is in the box has no place in the language.” Wittgenstein. <==nst] 

 Anyone who asserts to speak on behalf of all the authoritative experts in some field for all time is, then, a narcissist or confused.

[NST==>No.  They have just accepted the point-of-viewedness of things and are getting on with it.  <==nst] 

 That implies that what you say below supports arguments from authority. [NST==>I don’t think we can EVER escape arguments from authority.  Science is locked in a matrix of trust.  Doubt in science is really important, but it has to be relatively rare, or we would never know which of a million doubts to take seriously.  <==nst] 

 I.e. we can't treat a lack of salve as an assertion of objectivity without implicitly asserting that every statement without such salve is fallacious.[NST==>Yep.  All statements are more or less fallacious.  So does that render all statements the same?  If I flip the coin once and it comes up heads, what evidence do I have that the coin is biased.   None.  If I flip it twice, a little.  If I get a hundred heads, the probability that the coin flips represent a population of fair coin-flips is finite, but vanishingly small.  I’ld bet on it, wouldn’t you?  All statements of certainly of that character.  <==nst]   

 

Context _always_ matters, even in that most universal of science domains cosmology.[NST==>Not quite clear on what is so universal about cosmology.  Our experiences of cosmology are much less universal than our experiences of sneezing.  <==nst]  

 

Re: writing for the ages, it would be a mistake to think of a mailing list or discussion forum as if the posters made serious attempt to curate and "deep dive" into their own psyche or professional career arc when they make their posts. 

[NST==>I don’t know.  I usually try to swing for the fence when I write on FRIAM.  I think you do, too.  In fact, I think you are, now. <==nst] 

 As Marcus pointed out awhile back, these low-overhead postings are supposed to be more like a discussion and less like a formal submission to a journal ... or a well-curated indefinitely defensable statement of one's carefully thought out opinion.[NST==>Still, at the instant of writing, the intent is usually to speak the truth, right?  And what is “speaking the truth” but trying to lay out what one supposes will be believed on the matter a hundred, or a thousand, years from now.   <==nst]  

 

But I smell what I think is an intention, on your part, 

[NST==>I think “reek” was the term you were groping for. <==nst] 

to focus on something like "authenticity".  And that relates to our long-running thread on realism.  To a Socratic post-modernist like myself, knowing only that we know nothing, most of my opinions are fleeting and ill thought out. 

[NST==>Stipulated.  But some are less so than others, no?  If not, then all speech is just grooming.  I don’t think, that sober thought directed toward a study of the transcripts of what you have written here over the last 5 years would support the theory that you are just engaged in grooming. A while I am “in”, notice the gap between “knowing nothing and fearing that most of one’s opinions are fleeting…” To ask the questions Socrates asked, he had to know a lot.  He tried – and like most teachers failed – to ask questions only about matters of doubt.  But mostly he was a phony like all the rest of us Socratic teachers.  <==nst] 

 And I change my mind regularly enough.  So, were I to apply the overhead meta-content of "This is what I really believe" for every one of the (often) nonsensical brain farts I emit, that overhead would quickly swamp any potential content. 

[NST==>True.  All knowledge is provisional.  Yet, the statement that the coin is fair after 100 flips is still more-to-be-believed than after two.  <==nst] 

 Instead, I try to form self-coherent _arguments_ about this or that, regardless of whether I believe those arguments or not. I also think it's a bit of a mistake to [hyper] focus on any kind of "authenticity" for any particular sentence, post, or set of concepts.[NST==>Your assertion that your arguments are coherent is no less a swing for the fence than Einstein’s assertion that E=mc^2. You assert that sober opinion, in the long run, would converge on the notion that what you said made sense.   <==nst]   

 

While I agree that universality (global coherence, anyway) is a worthy objective, it is far out of reach. 

[NST==>Of course it’s out of reach.  Now are we going to strive for it, or not?  That’s the only question.  And what are the rules of good striving?  <==nst] 

 (And as the Hilbert program saw, perhaps even fundamentally flawed.)  But attempts at regions of local coherence have a long and glorious history of success.  Hence, it's irrelevant whether you or I really believe what we're saying at any given time.  What's more important is the extent to which the various sayings hang together (or not).[NST==>No. And I don’t think your behavior is consistent with that position.  If you did not think I was going to swing for the fence, you would never throw me a pitch.  Only a fool would ask Donald Trump a question of fact.  <==nst]  

[NST==>A post-modernist is like a disappointed lover.  You WILL find love again.  But only if you try.  <==nst] 

 

 

 

On February 25, 2017 9:52:22 AM PST, Nick Thompson < <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:

> 

>This is an old issue for me and I have, and probably still am, on both 

>sides of it.  From a Pragmatist’s point of view, social salve has 

>nothing to do with it.  We are talking about two quite different 

>propositions.  When you put the “salve” in, your claim is that this is 

>how the world looks “from here, from now”, but you make no universal 

>claim.  When you take the salve out, you are asserting that this is how 

>the world will look from all points of view in the very long run.  If, 

>without “salve”, you reply to this note saying, “Nick, this is bloody 

>non-sense!”, you will be saying that “Our colleagues will agree, in the 

>very long run, that what you have written is foolish.”  What is irksome 

>about such an unsalved claim is not the personal assertion of 

>disagreement – we all can handle that – but the implicit assertion of 

>universal judgement of all rational “men” upon what we thought was our 

>best possible thought.  As scientists, we usually try to speak for the 

>ages, as well as for ourselves, unless we say otherwise.  Writing as 

>for the ages is more efficient in the long run: either one qualifies 

>one’s short term opinions with “salve”, or one has to gin up one’s 

>long-term opinions with such words as, “No, this I really believe;  I 

>am not kidding here;  this is the truth!”  So, what you represent as 

>“politesse”, I would describe as a kind of precision about the nature 

>of one’s claims.

> 

> 

> 

>What I have just written I guess, I really believe … as a pragmatist.  

>(};-\)

 

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