[FRIAM] Cargo Cult
Steven A Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Sun Nov 19 12:03:50 EST 2017
Nick -
Yes! Thanks for putting this on the table... your calling this out
made me aware that I was almost assuredly introduced to the concept in
Feynman's "Joking" memoir. At the time, I remember feeling vaguely
(condescendingly) superior to the subjects of the anecdote.
Our current populist "magical thinking" is a bit less understandable
(forgiveable), however... but still worth understanding as best we can
how to turn that around... but painful to watch.
- Steve
> Ah, Steve. I might have known that Feynman would have something to do
> with it. Wikipedia, /ob cit: /
>
> //
>
> /The metaphorical use of "cargo cult" was popularized by physicist
> Richard Feynman <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman> at a
> 1974 Caltech <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltech> commencement
> speech <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commencement_speech>, which
> later became a chapter in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Feynman%21>,
> where he coined the phrase "cargo cult science
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science>" to describe
> activity that had some of the trappings of real science (such as
> publication in scientific journals
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_journal>) but lacked a basis
> in honest experimentation. Later the term cargo cult programming
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming> developed to
> describe computer software <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software>
> containing elements that are included because of successful
> utilization elsewhere, unnecessary for the task at hand.^[22]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult#cite_note-22> ///
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
> *From:*Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Steven
> A Smith
> *Sent:* Saturday, November 18, 2017 9:23 PM
> *To:* friam at redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Postmodernism for Rationalists
>
> Nick -
>
> What, for instance, is a cargo cult ideology? Praying to
> whatever might cause useful stuff to fall out of the sky?
>
> I tend to think of Cargo Cult thinking as (naively) conflating form
> with function, of invoking the "form" of something with the
> hope/assumption that the function will follow.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
>
> I think I hear in this presentation that it is being used mostly to
> describe the rhetoric of *some* PoMo followers who might salt their
> language with erudite sounding terms, hoping the results won't be
> challenged. Similar to the way Newage practitioners use "laser",
> "vibrational energy", "crystal", etc. to try to imply scientific
> foundations for their ideas. Or closer to home the way our extended
> group can be accused of "Complexity Babble" for lacing our explanation
> of things with words like "emergent" or "chaos" or "attractor" for
> similar purposes.
>
> I think the key concept is to invoke something you have seen to be
> effective in one context without understanding it's mechanism and
> thereby completely missing the mark in your own application.
>
> I was surprised to find that there was a style of computer programming
> named after this term as well.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming
>
> - Steve
>
>
> And, what is the relation between PoMo and Existentialism? I
> take existentialism to be the doctrine that all meaning in life,
> if human life has any meaning, is generated or asserted by the
> humans that live it.
>
> N
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>
> *From:*Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On Behalf Of
> *Frank Wimberly
> *Sent:* Saturday, November 18, 2017 5:53 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Postmodernism for Rationalists
>
> This stimulated a memory. When I was a sophomore at Carnegie
> Mellon one of my classmates, FM, was one of the most enthusiastic
> fraternity boys ever. I transferred to Berkeley that year. When
> I returned to CMU as a graduate student 5 years later he was also
> a grad student and a florid Hippie. I recently did a search and
> discovered that he is a prominent member of a folk-dancing group
> for elders. Some people are like chameleons; I am not being
> judgmental.
>
> Frank
>
> Frank Wimberly
> Phone (505) 670-9918 <tel:%28505%29%20670-9918>
>
> On Nov 18, 2017 5:44 PM, "Prof David West" <profwest at fastmail.fm
> <mailto:profwest at fastmail.fm>> wrote:
>
> I believe Frank is generally right. However,when I was in
> college in the late sixties hippies were in full bloom but
> Maynard G Krebs (Adventures of Dobie Gillis) was a TV icon and
> Lord Buckley was on the pop radio.
>
> dave west
>
> On Sat, Nov 18, 2017, at 05:39 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>
> In my experience, growing up in n the Bay Area, Beatniks
> had come and gone before the Hippies emerged.
>
> Frank
>
> Frank Wimberly
>
> Phone (505) 670-9918 <tel:%28505%29%20670-9918>
>
> On Nov 18, 2017 11:15 AM, "Steven A Smith"
> <sasmyth at swcp.com <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:
>
> Glen ☣-
>
> A Postmodernist trying to Rationalize Postmodernism to
> Rationalists?
>
> Actually I found it somewhat interesting... and was
> (nicely?) put off by the formatting... the ragged use
> of bullet points... a "bulleted list of one" seems
> very symbolic of my caricature of PoMo aesthetic.
>
> As for the summary you included here from the
> presentation:
>
> Best of Times:
>
> A) my introduction (informal) to PoMo
> presented significantly as both dogmatic and
> ideological... but that may have been partly
> projection and partly the selectivity of what I
> *recognized as* PoMo.
>
> 2) The "focus on human values" is a
> tautological statement? PoMo seems to be centered
> (to the exclusion of all else) on a subjectivity
> that is intrinsically "human" and maybe even more
> acutely "self" as in "self-centered"? I'm not
> trying to say that I don't find the PoMo
> perspective useful and even appealing in many
> ways, but in it's purest form, it would seem to
> degenerate to pure narcissism (without judgement
> of that)?
>
> c.) Definitely seems to help "expand the mind"
> in roughly the same manner that hallucinagens do?
> I also don't mean that to be acutely dismissive,
> but the mechanism seems to be similar to this,
> and/or maybe "annealing" with repeated
> (arbitrary?) randomizing of the smallest elements
> with thermal excitation?
>
> IV) This one feels like the most useful (or
> least challenging?) of his observations.
>
> Worst of Times:
>
> 0.0 My earliest introduction to PoMo was
> exclusively (selective hearing?) used to push
> shoddy agendas... I observed it being used as a
> turd in the punchbowl more than anything. I think
> I'm (well?) past judging it by that early
> introduction, but I think the author cited here is
> (in other text) pointing at the abuses of the
> Alt.Right these days.
>
> II.) I like the allusion to Cargo Cult... and
> it fits the superficial approach of PoMo as I
> apprehend it... elevating correlation (free
> association) to the level of causation. Ignoring
> the implicit commutativity in the Form/Function
> duality. I don't mean PoMo is intrinsically
> superficial, but rather that it is often invoked
> in that mode and perhaps (too) often apprehended
> that way in an attempt to dismiss it's
> confrontational style (nature?).
>
> c.a) 0.0 above exhibited in this way more than
> not... it was the tool of self-styled "young
> Turks" who, in some ways, like the Anarchists of
> early c20, recognized that it is easier (and can
> be more satisfying) to toss a bomb into things
> than it is to try to deconstruct/reconstruct
> thoughtfully.
>
> Zed ☣) The existential loneliness of PoMo
> seems to associate it with Nihilism and may drive
> the worst aspects of it's presentation in culture?
>
> PoMo seems "mature" enough now that it, itself is
> wanting to be received seriously (trying to
> rationalize itself to rationalists?). It's
> (unfortunate) association with the Beat culture (my
> experience growing up was that the Beats were mostly
> the over-30 dropout men who were trying to horn in on
> the youth culture of the Hippies, especially
> (surprise!) the girls) and aspects of the (subsequent)
> drop-out culture exemplified by the Merry Pranksters.
>
> But what comes after/follows-from PoMo?
> Post-Postmodernism? MetaModernism? A plenitude of
> *modernisms (as suggested by the PoMo aesthetic?)
>
> From the Wikipedia Post Postmodernism entry:
>
> /Salient features of postmodernism are normally
> thought to include the ironic play with styles,
> citations and narrative levels,^[6]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-6>
> a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism> towards a
> “grand narrative
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_narrative>”
> of Western culture,^[7]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-7>
> a preference for the virtual at the expense of the
> real (or more accurately, a fundamental
> questioning of what 'the real' constitutes)^[8]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-8>
> and a “waning of affect”^[9]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-9>
> on the part of the subject, who is caught up in
> the free interplay of virtual, endlessly
> reproducible signs inducing a state of
> consciousness similar to schizophrenia.^[10]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-10>
> /
>
> All I know about PoPoMo I just read in Wikipedia (how
> non-PoMo of me?) but recognize some of the ideas and
> names referenced there. Eric Gan's PostMillenialism
> struck me for it's dismissal (judgement?) of PoMo as
> "victimary thinking"... a corollary of nihilism? I
> don't really take Gan's Generative Anthropology
> seriously (though it has interesting ideas) and DO
> (against my personal convenience) believe in a
> postCapitalist/postDemocracy (r)evolution on the cusp
> of happening (perhaps even in my lifetime?).
>
> I also find something interesting in this description
> of metaModernism (same source):
>
> /As examples of the metamodern sensibility
> Vermeulen and van den Akker cite the 'informed
> naivety', 'pragmatic idealism' and 'moderate
> fanaticism' of the various cultural responses to,
> among others, climate change, the financial
> crisis, and (geo)political instability./
>
> /The prefix 'meta' here refers not to some
> reflective stance or repeated rumination, but to
> Plato's metaxy
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaxy>, which
> intends a movement between opposite poles as well
> as beyond.^[25]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism#cite_note-25>
> /
>
> Fire away!
>
> - Sieve
>
> HTML:
>
> https://palegreendot.net/rrg_notes/2017/10/09/rrg-reading-notes.html
>
> PDF:
>
> https://palegreendot.net/assets/2017-10-09/postmodernism_for_rationalists.pdf
>
>
>
> I appreciated these 2 slides:
>
>
>
>
>
> • Postmodernism at its best
>
>
>
> · Not dogmatic and ideological
>
> · Focuses on human values
>
> · Allows you to approach and understand other subjects and viewpoints
>
> · Acknowledges that the territory might require multiple maps
>
>
>
> • Postmodernism at its worst
>
>
>
> · Used to push shoddy political agendas
>
> · Cargo cult ideology
>
> · Used to rationalize and excuse asocial behavior
>
> · Results in existential loneliness
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>
> to unsubscribe
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr.
> Strangelove
>
> ============================================================
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>
> to unsubscribe
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr.
> Strangelove
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>
> to unsubscribehttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>
> FRIAM-COMIChttp://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20171119/fd01d132/attachment.html>
More information about the Friam
mailing list