[FRIAM] on Feynman, again

Thu Oct 12 19:37:30 EDT 2017

Glen/Marcus -

Once again, a nicely chewy (if mildly pithy) exchange here:

To try to summarize my own responses...   I think Glen is suggesting 
(via Aaronson quotes/references) that some folks believe that by 
invoking an aphorism of a well-respected/famous person and finding fault 
with it (sneering?) that they thereby gain some of the power that person 
has (socially?) not unlike a cannibal-warrior eating a vanquished 
opponent's organ of choice. Or racing for pink slips?

As for "Apex Predator of the Signalling World", I assume that the 
allusion is to replacing the actual discussion at hand in an arguement 
or investigation with a meta-discussion, a superset of ad-hominism?   
FWIW I've just been watching Hugh Laurie's new (to me) role as Dr. 
Chance (Neuropsychologist cum Vigilante) in the Hulu series of that name 
(Chance), who is doing his own version of Walter White-style breaking 
bad, and there are a lot of parallels to what I *think* you are pointing 
out here.

Regarding this Robinson fellow, he does *seem to be* a lot more credible 
(or grounded, or ???) than most of his brethren in arms.   Given that 
both of you have a strong contrarian streak of your own, I want to be 
careful in observing that "contrarianism" is one of the stronger signals 
(in my experience) for conspiracy whackadoodlery.  Just as with cinema, 
food, literary and really any form of criticism it is generally easier 
to let someone else do the heavy lifting of building something up and 
then just come along and chisel away at some of the weak spots and claim 
to have done something equally worthy (or meaningful or utilitarian?), 
not unlike the original point made by Aaronson above.    Another 
signature element in my experience is strong examples of confirmation 
bias.   "mainstream science" is also guilty of same, and perhaps that is 
what "alt science" legitimately has a claim against them (us?) for, is 
that there are *structural* biases built into funding and 
peer-review/publication.

That said, there has to be some useful "corollary" to the idea of "just 
because you are paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!".   
Maybe "just because you recognize and call out the biases of that which 
is mainstream doesn't make YOUR contrarian biases any more legitimate"?

I'm not personally that focused on cancer itself, but am generally 
interested in human metabolism and the effects of the "diseases of 
affluence" that our first-world lives lead us to.  I find this to be an 
interesting microcosm of the global scale issues such as global climate 
change, travel-aggravated-epidemics, and diversity collapse.

I found it acutely interesting that Robinson (and colleagues) would play 
the "hedge" of "if there is climate change, it seems to be good for 
humanity!".   Why can't they take those two issues fully independently 
and corroborate the "mainstream"s observations about the anthropogenic 
effects they CAN observe and then maybe (or not) make their own case for 
evaluating (not cherry picking) models of ways that might "help" the 
biosphere (or even the anthroposphere)?   I may be being sloppy, but it 
seems to me that there is a strong correlation between mere "contrarian" 
and a more insidious "strong conflation".

This leaves me wondering if there are natural language processing tools 
suitable for identifying these kinds of structural failures in written 
discussion/arguement?   Maybe Google is doing this already and using the 
results to mine what is superficially fringe/crackpot/pseudo-science for 
the real thing (revolutionary science marginalized by the mainstream?)

Carry On,

  - Steve

On 10/12/17 4:25 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Like upsides to global warming, perhaps there are benefits to the irrationality of scientists, like Robinson's and others'.
> It suggests that science is an activity or an algorithm, that can be conducted in parallel with arbitrary if closely-held beliefs.
> But I'm cynical.  I'm inclined to think the scientific method is just a weapon in the hands of a sufficiently wacko person to pummel the world into a form they think they can manage or profit from.   Better have more non-wacko people with the same skills to balance things out.   Sure, there is herd behavior in all kinds of people, even the science-policy elites in Washington.   Is there some harm being done by them other than to direct money in a worthy direction that happens not to be to him?   The contrarian needs to be clever to navigate these things and do more than complain.
>
> Marcus
>
> "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity." - Albert Einstein
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of g??? ?
> Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2017 4:01 PM
> To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] on Feynman, again
>
> Yep.  One of my homunculi does that to his brethren.  This came out today:
>
>    The Grandfather Of Alt-Science
>    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-grandfather-of-alt-science/
>
> Anyone whose spent any time in Oregon knows this whack job.  And my apex predator of the signaling world homunculus yells at me to hate him as the crackpot he clearly is, as well as his neolithic social postions.  But *most* of my other homunculi have immense respect for someone who hacks their own path through the thicket, going to bat for every wannabe crackpot or inventor who spends their spare time breathing solder smoke in the basement or suffers regular chemical burns because they care more about their objective than safety.  Yes, DIY biology is dangerous.  But hey, we can't all work in the belly of some bureaucratic leviathan.
>
>
> On 10/12/2017 02:44 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> "Apex predator of the signaling world."
>>
>> Cute, know it well.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of g??? ?
>> Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2017 3:37 PM
>> To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] on Feynman, again
>>
>> I know.  I just thought it was an interesting post.  That we'd recently discussed Feynman was only a segue. I could also have used Russell as the segue, since Marcus quoted him in our thread.
>>
>> The 1st part of Aaronson's post re: Gowers is more interesting than the later stuff.
>>
>> On 10/12/2017 02:26 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>>> I took issue not with Feynman as a person ...
>>> https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3488
>>>
>>>> if you write, for example, that Richard Feynman was a self-aggrandizing chauvinist showboater, then even if your remarks have a nonzero inner product with the truth, you don’t thereby “transcend” Feynman and stand above him, in the same way that set theory transcends and stands above arithmetic by constructing a model for it.  Feynman’s achievements don’t thereby become your achievements.
>>
>> --
>> ☣ gⅼеɳ
>>
>> ============================================================
>> 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
>>
> --
> ☣ gⅼеɳ
>
> ============================================================
> 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
>