[FRIAM] Shorthands for Brain-stuff

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Russ, 

 

Categories are the stuff or ordinary logic, right.  We are given the category swans.  Knowing that all swans are white, and that this bird is a swan, we know that this bird is white; knowing that this bird is a swan, and that this bird is white, we infer (fallibly, but with some probability) that all swans are white; and knowing that this bird is white, and that all swans are white, we infer (fallibly, but with some probability) that this bird is a swan.  

 

But nobody ever tells me where the category comes from.

 

Nick 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Monday, October 5, 2020 4:11 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Shorthands for Brain-stuff

 

Can't we get fine approximations via apt categorizations? I can witness how others, that are similar to this
individual, behaved in the past.  


 

Of course we can and do create categories. They will often be useful, but they will almost certainly produce wrong answers in significant numbers of situations. When applied to people such categories often become stereotypes, which can do great damage to both individuals and society.

 

-- Russ Abbott                                       
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

 

 

On Mon, Oct 5, 2020 at 2:02 PM jon zingale <jonzingale at gmail.com <mailto:jonzingale at gmail.com> > wrote:

"It can’t be necessary to adopt what amounts to a religion in order to
function with one another."

Maybe not a religion, but perhaps to recognize/engage one's beliefs relative
to another's beliefs?

"In many cases, one would have to know the complete history of a
person--from his childhood family and environment to whether someone gave
him the finger for no apparent reason earlier in the day--to know how he is
going react to any particular triggering event."

What about classes? Can't we get fine approximations via apt
categorizations? I can witness how others, that are similar to this
individual, behaved in the past.

"So, I think it's Fine and Good to *entertain* the idea of fully closed
logical abstraction floors and ceilings. But I think it's shaky metaphysics
to rely on them."

Agreed. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about openness on the left hand
and closedness on the right. There is no adapting to an ever-changing world
when we are closed, but at least we can write global theorems. When we are
open, we are open to catastrophe, and all progress to rectify discrepancies
between model and experience is inherently local.




--
Sent from: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam <http://bit.ly/virtualfriam> 
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> 
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20201005/eed42ab5/attachment.html>