[FRIAM] /Topic Latent in: Latent Topics was: enough sleep?

[Steven A Smith]

Glen -
> On 4/10/19 1:34 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>> https://sites.google.com/site/markshirey/ideas/golden-rule-and-prisoner-s-dilemma
>>
>
> Excellent article!  Thanks. Is it actually an article by Sagan?  Or a
> blog post by Shirey?
I parse it as a blog post by Shirey which is composed of 3 included
articles (I believe) 1) Dear Abby; 2) Carl Sagan; 3) Wendy Grossman,
though I didn't fact-check if the included text is accurate.  The bulk
of it is attributed to Sagan.  Oh if only TBL had been more true to Xanadu!
> In any case, the "Tin Rule" targets my confusion well, because it's
> modal, using 1 rule for 1 context and another rule for another context.
I don't think of it as modal (though it is in the precise presentation
offered) as much as dependent on an additional variable:  social or
genetic distance.
> What I don't understand is why anyone would even think in terms of
> fixed rules to begin with.  The concept of Universal Income is
> fantastic and I'd gladly give up a large portion of my salary to
> support it. But, like all these XYZ Rule siblings (ancestors?) of
> Kant's Categorical Imperative, they seem to imply a STATIC or at least
> high inertially stable equilibrium ... something stable enough to make
> a "good" rule yesterday remain a "good" rule today.

As a modeler/simulant, you know the answer to your own question:  "all
models are wrong, some are useful"?   I'm not sure what the threshold
(quality or quantity) you would put on when a "game's rules" are no
longer fixed.   I suspect most if not all of your code is not only
finite in length but is not self-modifying?  These would be fixed, if
often very complex, rules?

I wonder if you are distinguishing Finite and Infinite Games (in the
sense of Carse
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games>) or more
Static V Dynamic balance?

I also tend to treat these "moral rules" as heuristics, as
rules-of-thumb.    I don't spend a lot of time considering the
exceptions to rules like the 10 commandments, but believe that there are
circumstances when I might Kill or Covet a Wife or Borrow and not Return
something without undue guilt or collapse of the society I live in.

> I don't know what world(s) you people live in.  But my world has never
> been that stable or well-defined.
Is this not a matter of perspective?  If I wrote my memoir, some would
find my life's arc that of a veritable pinball careening off of a series
of locales, jobs, partners, ideologies while others might find the
streamlined arcs within it.  In fact, I am editing my partner's memoirs
right now for her and find the challenge to be precisely that... how to
present the data (anecdotal factoids) in a way that preserves those
collisions whilst fitting (some of) them to various (spliney) arcs,
whilst still not overfitting or cherry picking (too much)?
>   This is the origin of my question: Why (or "what canalizes" for Gary
> 8^) people to expect their world to treat them well?  Why do people
> feel like their lives should be "pain free"?  Why do people think they
> don't deserve to die starving in dirty streets?  Etc.

This seems to often be the domain of religion, even the pseudo-religion
of "secular humanism".  I would claim that as soon as you introduce the
idea of "deserve" (even in the negative), you have introduced something
very much like a religious framework.   Being a society deeply rooted in
the Judeo-Christian tradition, we inherit a LOT of "deserves" and
"deserve-nots" and "shalls" and "shants" from that tradition, even if it
is encoded in political or social organizations.  I myself, despite
being raised nearly Agnostic and practicing as a (mild) Athiest am
fascinated with the Judeo-Christian ideal of Divine Grace, independent
of an anthropomorphised father-figure.   In the spirit of JFK's "Ask
Not" speech, I'm more interested in what I can do to make the world a
"better" place (for all, though probably biased as with the tin-rule)
than I am in how to manipulate others into making my own local "place"
better for me personally.  

I think this is where our democracy falls short, too often neglecting
the basis of citizenship it is (presumed to be?) built upon.   It is the
duality of *rights* and *responsibilities* in a group that transcends
simple kinship and possibly geopolitics.  We have become overly focused
on "what can (should) my country do for me"... and I say that as someone
whose instincts as an individualist are *strong*.   I'm not saying I
*can't* withdraw from society and make (some level of) sense of myself
as an individual or a member of a small(ish) group, but rather that I
see benefits in *choosing* to throw in with a much larger group.   I
suppose, referencing back to the start of this discussion, *softening*
the tin-rule, or *expanding the scope* of me/mine to be more inclusive
with a *possible* goal of globalism or even pan-conscioussness-ism?

I wonder if some of the nostalgia for "Nationalism" isn't rooted in the
advantage gained when we transcended kinship or tribalism or
regionalism, but then abberrated into the belief that xenophobic
responses to "other" are not just positive but *necessary*?   Conflating
"having good friends" and "it is good to have a well-identified enemy"?

> What mechanism is responsible for these patterns of expectation, given
> (what seems to me) a co-evolutionary milieu far from equilibrium?  Is
> it simply Hebbian/reinforcement learning, an embodied type of (false)
> induction?
I think this ties back into the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma and your 
point about "why rules?".    I think you are asking something more
profound or more subtle than I am apprehending here.   In the language
you are hinting at, I think maybe there is a *coherence* advantage in
"thinking one deserves", just as I believe there are *some* (group?)
survival advantages to over-estimating one's abilities.  Or perhaps the
true advantage is from a group having a distribution of members from
pessimist to optimist?
>   I'm skeptical because of your (Steve) question about the
> unreasonable efficacy of mathematics in modeling the world. Your
> mention of negentropy in this thread seems spot on.
>
> But, like the Tin Rule, whatever answer is implied by such concepts
> must be at least modal, if not something more sophisticated like
> Aristotle's separation of causes (and/or Rosen's idea that some types
> of cause can be closed while the others remain open).  We're not
> looking for something as simple as reinforcement learning.  We're
> looking for principles of the universe robust to ... something yet
> fragile to something else.

I may have to re-read this paragraph when I've taken a break (maybe a
nap!?) as I taste strong hints of profound/subtle in it, but am not
quite getting the full implications.  Or maybe you can
elaborate/elucidate, or maybe someone else will respond to this
particlarly... I need more parallax?

- Steve

>
>
> On 4/10/19 1:34 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>
>>> One of you said:
>>>
>>>  
>>> */and I can't help but wonder *why* individuals are so entitled to
>>> think they deserve anything at all other than the opportunity to exist
>>> ... if even that./*
>>>
>> I didn't say it but I will defend it.  Probably in one (or two) of my
>> idiosyncratic ways:
>>
>>   1. I believe this was presented as more of a deep existential point
>>      rather than a progressive social one. E.G.:  "Does this rock, the
>>      planet earth or for that matter *any planet* *deserve* an
>>      opportunity to exist?"
>>   2. Even as a progressive social point, I think it is critical to
>> notice
>>      that "what one deserves" is not commutative with "what a given
>>      society might choose to extend".
>>
>> It would seem that "the Golden Rule" is reflexive but I contend that "Do
>> unto others because you think others will and should (be required to?)
>> reciprocate in kind" is not the same as "Do unto others as a way to
>> participate in forming a desireable collective ethos which supports a
>> cultural milieu in which I believe I would enjoy a favorable
>> existence".  I believe that "the Golden Rule"'s  *gold* is in emergence.
>>
>> Here is an interesting blog post on the topic of metal-metaphor rules
>> (golden, brazen, iron, etc.) and the iterated prisoner's dilemma.
>>
>>     
>> https://sites.google.com/site/markshirey/ideas/golden-rule-and-prisoner-s-dilemma
>>
>> and of course the ever-popular variation on Tit-for-Tat: MOTH  ;/
>>
>>     
>> https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/My-Way-or-the-Highway%3A-a-More-Naturalistic-Model-of-Joyce-Kennison/5ab1a937d62363f3816c6b80a53aba5730ef5806
>>
>>> *//*
>>>
>>>  
>>>  
>>> Lurking in the back caves of my liberal bleeding heart lurks a troll
>>> who responds badly to "entitlement" and its close relative
>>> "victimhood."
>>>
>>> Every entitlement enjoyed by one person relies on an obligation taken
>>> on by others.  So the conversation should start with deciding what
>>> obligations we want to take on so as to afford a reasonable sense of
>>> safety and protection for others.  I happen to think that I, and my
>>> children, and grandchildren will be happier there are basic supports
>>> to limit poverty, disease, and despair in the population around us.
>>> And, I am also glad when I think that those supports will be available
>>> for me and mine, should they become necessary.   But is there a "moral
>>> hazard", here?  Will I drive less cautiously because I have automobile
>>> insurance, smoke more and drink more Pepsi because I have health
>>> insurance, spend more freely because there will be food stamps?  I
>>> suppose there's data on that, somewhere.
>
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