[FRIAM] alternative response

Wed Jun 17 00:13:08 EDT 2020

I guess Your Man Pierce will never be mine :-)

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 10:59 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi, Gary,
>
>
>
> Now My Man Peirce was allergic to determinism.  He liked to say that if
> the world was not as random as it could be, it was pretty damned close.
> When he said things like this, I think he was thinking about relations
> between events. Here’s a quick exposition of that point of view.
>
>
>
> Let experience be as random as it could possibly be; indeed, Peirce thinks
> that experience is approximately that random. Considering all the events
> that are going on at any one moment -- the ticking of the clock, the
> whuffing of the wind in the eaves, the drip of the faucet, the ringing of
> the telephone, the call from the seven-year-old upstairs who cannot find
> his shoes, the clunking in the heating pipes as the heat comes on, the
> distant sound of the fire engine passing the end of the street, the entry
> of the cat through the pet door, the skitter of mouse-feet behind the
> wainscoting -- most will be likely unrelated to the fact that the egg timer
> just went off. Perhaps not all, however. Perhaps the cat anticipates
> cleaning up the egg dishes. Perhaps the same stove that is boiling the egg
> water has lit a fire in the chimney. But whatever relations we might
> discover amongst all these events, we can find an infinite number of other
> temporally contiguous events that are not related to them. Thus, as Peirce
> says, events are just about as random as anybody could care them to be.
>
>
>
> I see that I have begged my own question of what randomness IS.  But the
> rarity that any one event in the universe implies the occurance of any
> other.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Gary Schiltz
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 16, 2020 8:32 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] alternative response
>
>
>
> If I understand correctly, random in the statistical sense, is just a
> distribution. Random, in the colloquial sense, does not exist. All state is
> all determined by physical laws. That’s of course without regard to quantum
> mechanics. But my beliefs about such things were forged before quantum
> theory had been invented, or at least before I had heard of it. It does now
> temper my beliefs with a healthy dose of uncertainty.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 9:16 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi, Gary,
>
> So, am I right to guess that wearing that hat implies a position on the
> meaning of the word, “random”?  How does that go?
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Gary Schiltz
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 16, 2020 5:27 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] alternative response
>
>
>
> Putting on my determinist hat (which I usually wear), I would say that the
> event of the neighbor passing by your study
>
> was pre-determined by the forces established at the instant of the Big
> Bang. As is everything else.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 4:59 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Is the question whether it was "pre-determined?" Or is the question whether
> it was predetermined by Charles??   I have a neighbor who passes my study
> window every afternoon at 4pm with his very floppy cocker spaniel.  Is that
> event predetermined by the dog (who begs to go out at 3.30), by Scott (who
> welcomes the distraction), by the clock (which he checks to keep the dog
> honest), or ....
>
> I know this because I used to set out for coffee every afternoon at that
> time, and we would often meet on my doorstep and walk together a few paces
> down the street.  Because of COVID I don't do that any more.  Did COVID
> determine my change of behavior?  Or did I make a FREE choice.
>
> I think the freedom of free will is just an ideological matter.  Each of us
> is supposed to be a master of our behavior and circumstances.  Indeed, in
> some jurisdictions, you can be popped in the loony-bin for not being so.
> In
> which case, I think, the loony bin is where we all belong.  Or perhaps
> are?
>
> Anyway, Glen will accuse me of strawmanning again.  Forgive me.  I have
> been
> tortured by dualists all my life, and now I am visiting my revengte on all
> of you.
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Jon Zingale
> Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2020 3:38 PM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] alternative response
>
> An attempt to steelman via wingman:
>
> The idea that Glen is proposing is to highlight a sweet spot in one's
> experience where unfamiliarity competes with habit. Glen advocates for
> bracketing questions of a prime mover or that which happens in pathological
> limits. Instead, he wishes to constrain the scope of free will to a
> question
> of free versus bound with respect to some arbitrary
> component/scale/neighborhood (the free will zone). I will try not to fight
> this as I still think of this interpretation of *free will* as being a
> discussion of will, determined or not. For instance, I may be willful and
> determined.
> The value
> I see in Glen's perspective is that we can develop a grammar for discussing
> deliberate action, perhaps involving a Bayesian update rule to an otherwise
> evaporative memory or local foresight. He is advocating to not concern
> ourselves with whether or not Charles Bukowski was *predestined* to be a
> drunk, but rather with determining where the *choice* to do otherwise may
> have been.
>
>
>
> --
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