[FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats
David Eric Smith
desmith at santafe.edu
Thu Oct 29 11:34:15 EDT 2020
Very nice, Nick.
Co-larding below, but I will try to keep it short.
> On Oct 28, 2020, at 11:12 PM, <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks Eric.
>
> Some unsophisticated “larding” below.
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,7mgS_yRtylDwoUn0gBHLwx1KOpvXunFFWVOL-dndvnSW8gh3D853mwn4VaHNUkLWaOpRoXYIUGisFga4oYshoWm_HH69okfPH90nSpHrnw,,&typo=1>
>
>
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 7:35 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats
>
> Hi Nick,
>
> I think something causes dreams to have the narrative order they have. Whatever it is probably is put in place by all the other functions that the brain is asked to perform, along with the many constraints on how it is possible to make a brain. So dreams receive all that structure to take the form they do.
> [NST===>I am sure that everything I am about to say is wrong, but let’s see where it goes. Let’s say, ex hypothesi, that sleeping is for tidying up the brain and the brain cannot tidy up without generating experiences, in the say that I cannot tidy up the mess of books, bills, and papers without reading them briefly to identify them and put them in some frame of reference. Let it be the case that this goes on all night at a tremendous speed, and even though you are experiencing, you do nothing because you are asleep. Now, upon awakening, you catch some of this processing in progress and you remember them along with phony narrative time stamps that attach them to earlier in the night. Dreams are an epiphenomena of the waking brain catching the sleeping brain at its work. I think I have just created a dualist monster here. Oh, well. <===nst]
I actually think this is fine. What I have seen about the memory-reinforcement role believed to be served by dreams works with it well.
The point being, dreams are not creating narrative for their own sake and within their own scope. They are inheriting structures of narrative that are there in the brain, and are part of a template as other work is being done.
> I prefer that kind of example, where there are many inputs and a real thing (all the organization of the brain) that they create, which is then available to act “downwardly” on any one thing, particularly one that the structure probably wasn’t selected for. Like, dreaming may be functional, but I’m not sure that whether dreams are entertaining would matter that much to evolutionary criteria.
>
> What I prefer those examples to are the old trope of “magnetization downwardly causes spins to align”, since there is no additional thing that is “magnetization” than the aggregate effect of all the other spins. So one hasn’t added anything by claiming “downward causation” to just saying “each spin affects all the others, and the net effect excludes entropy to the environment”.
> [NST===>So am I right that the magnetization is not an emergent; it is just the aggregate effect of the spins?<===nst]
It is emergent, and it is exactly nothing more than an aggregate effect. Both. Because in this use of the term “emergent” there is no dependence on a notion of downward causation.
This was my life. I use emergence daily. I never find myself needing to use downward causation.
Best,
Eric
>
> Best,
>
> Eric
>
>
>
>> On Oct 28, 2020, at 3:48 PM, <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> The bite causes the irritation causes the itch causes the slap causes the removal of the mosquito. And the slap causes the mosquito to be gone and relieves the irritation. So that is definitely downward causation. But this is all in the context of a complex organization that has already been assembled and “designed” for self maintenance. To it begs the question I was [ineptly] trying to ask. How do such control systems get assembled in the first place if NOT through the mediation of group selection?
>>
>> N
>>
>>
>> I suppose that the local irritation causes the itch is upward causation, that “itch” is a state of the whole.
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>> Clark University
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,E3j_ycVni22ignpNV8IcYN_l6RjYl9qsLDTt0w72L-JpDqiVv0B1y7kJwgT01Vl1U0L_0fwvlWWbaSWWJETTmYIoCSXpFW7hINbo6PeV_Q,,&typo=1>
>>
>>
>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 1:37 PM
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats
>>
>> Scratching oneself? I'm not trying to be a pain.
>>
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:32 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> If one allows stygmergy as a form of downward causation, I can understand it. So I guess I am looking for the simplest kind of example of self assembly: i.e., where something of a higher order improves itself by improving the arrangement of its parts. Or places constraints on its parts to be good for itself. There may be a thousand examples. I just can’t think of one that doesn’t involve group selection.
>>>
>>> N
>>>
>>> Nicholas Thompson
>>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>> Clark University
>>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,An9y_L_qMcw7DjbQBwr59oFMAkGsviixot6WozslEE5WIPeCOq2aKJdu9NDGUP0rZYt1iuyD3biIS01Jw0dBCOHTRC-pjjvpRwzika9I9hBfjEOV8b0_&typo=1>
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
>>> Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2020 1:16 PM
>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats
>>>
>>> I'm not Marcus but a classical example is mental events causing physical events. Note the use of mental language.
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>>
>>> 505 670-9918
>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:12 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>> Marcus,
>>>>
>>>> can't claim to understand you fully, here, but your use of the word, sovereignty, made me think you might have something to contribute to a quandary I found myself in recently. I was on a zoom with a bunch of people. First they talked about emergence, and I figured I understand that. Wimsatt: a property is emergent if it is a property of a whole that depends on the order or arrangement of the parts. So, the ability of sticks to bear weight depends on their arrangement as triangles. So far, so good. But then the began to talk about "downward" causation, and I realized that I did not know, nor have I ever known, what people mean by "downward" causation. Do you have some simple models of it in mind that even I could understand?
>>>>
>>>> Nick
>>>> Nicholas Thompson
>>>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>>> Clark University
>>>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,X_Hocj6SdBc0MDDb2mlzh7srKvS3uL-KZkaMDTdSpbaMNF3g3NmrYEjvQstBMXihPcYL1h4yPl0OxGL3LzA5pN8DhX67WpKzgxCK0SQMhS76Soin3Lg,&typo=1>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
>>>> Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 9:17 PM
>>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats
>>>>
>>>> Using statistical mechanics to inspire a stable and universal functional form that evolves in time is one way to make a model of social systems. But even with that for model of the physical world, there are many possible models for control systems that could layer on top of it. If there are no shared concept types in these different models, there's nothing to do but go back to simulating the physics to determine what could happen next. Simulating these physics takes energy that is of no discernable value to users of any one model so at some point there will be conflict over that energy. The Libertarian claims that there is something in common between the users of these models, but it is nothing more than story that serves her purposes. There is no reason not to violate her sovereignty if the reward/risk is acceptable.
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of ? glen
>>>> Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 7:18 PM
>>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Getting You Libertarians' Goats
>>>>
>>>> Well, sure. But the assumptions and simplifications are piling up fast. With anarcho-capitalism, I was trying to suggest a governing system that relies on as few assumptions as possible. And my sense is that social democracy relies on more assumptions (like the existence of stable functional forms).
>>>>
>>>> On September 14, 2020 6:13:33 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
>>>> >It depends whether you think of "static" as some circumscribed state or
>>>> >"static" as a fixed functional form. (The latter still allowing for a
>>>> >dynamical system.) The appropriation/application of the notion of a
>>>> >"phase transition" would probably argue for the fixed functional form
>>>> >on the basis of physics.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> glen ⛧
>>>>
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