[FRIAM] Dear Long Suffering Colleagues

Mon Dec 20 15:48:27 EST 2021

Frank,

Ok, so one of the problems here is an unfortunate coincidence concerning the word independent.  In psych talk, an independent variable is one that the experimenter is freely able to manipulate.  So in your causal collision example, in psych talk, both A and B are independent of one another and independent of C.  You kind of independence has to do with what knowledge of one variable tells you about (or constrains) values of other variables, right?  So, if I know C, and if know that the values of A and B influence C, then anything I learn about A will tell me something about B.  It would be like ab=c  implies that a=c/b, right?  No argument there.  

Sorry to make you do this in words. 

n

Nick Thompson

 <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 Frank Wimberly
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2021 7:41 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Dear Long Suffering Colleagues

I'll put it in my terms which will reduce the chances of my making an error.  If A and B are both causes of C then A is not independent of B given C.  C is a collider.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 11:09 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Yes!  Right!  Thankyou! 

That is now obvious to you because you know that stuff.  But for three weeks it has been driving me crazy.  

Now for the second point. 

E1 and E2, each causally contribute to a behavior, B.  In this case, postulating

 an inner state, I, that is caused by both E1 and E2, and which causes I, affects 

one's predictions concerning the relationship between environment and behavior. 

This is from the abstract of the article.  Not only do we see the same slip-up with respect to I (I IS after all, the inner state), but we see also that the abstract entertains an article about causal convergence (“collision”), not causal forks.  Yet every where else, in the title, or in the body, the article seems to be talking about forks.  Even with my weak knowledge of formal logic and probability, I can see that that would make a huge difference.  Can you confirm also that that is a cockup, so I don’t spend another month trying to make it make sense?

Thanks, 

Nick

Nick Thompson

 <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 <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2021 10:35 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Dear Long Suffering Colleagues

"I screens of S from I" doesn't make sense. Must be a typo.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 9:24 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Sorry,  Frank.  I don’t mean to be standoffish.  I have yet to be that close to a non family member (as we would have to be, going line by line over a text.  

Are you sure you read the two first passages TOGETHER. Notice where the I’s appear in the first and where they appear in the second.  

The family is throwing caution to the wind over the next two weeks so by mid January I will either be dead or psychologically immunized.  But I hope I will have gotten this thing written by then.  

N

Nick Thompson

 <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 <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2021 5:25 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Dear Long Suffering Colleagues

Sober is correct.  I wish you would accept my offer to explain this to you face to face with paper and pencil.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 4:20 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Here, once again, is the infamous Sober article.   I know.  Half of you want to throw me off FRIAM for being so ignorant as to give my time to it, while the other half want to throw me off FRIAM for being so ignorant as to find fault with it.  I confess that both of these could be true.  

It all revolves the consequences of “screening off” and it’s possible relations to the claims of behaviorism.  

First I want to point out what I have now come to believe are devastating typos, typos which those of you who have already read the text for me might not have noticed because you knew what the passages SHOULD say, and so read right over what they actually said   For me, with my very limited gasp of probability inference, was completely knocked flat by them and only quite recently come to believe that they are typos.

For example, if a stimulus S raises the probability of inner state I, 
and I raises the probability of response R, then S raises the probability R, provided 

that I screens-off S from I. Screening-off means that 

Pr(R at t1 | I at t2 ) = Pr(R at t1 | I at t2 & S at t1 ). 

Note that the two passages contradict one another.    I would simply disregard the first passage  if it weren’t repeated in the  document’s abstract: 

E1 and E2, each causally contribute to a behavior, B.  In this case, postulating

 an inner state, I, that is caused by both E1 and E2, and which causes I, affects 

one's predictions concerning the relationship between environment and behavior. 

Notice also, that this exposition in the abstract contemplates a causal collision, where the burden of the article concerns causal forks.

I have struggled to come up with a verbal account of “screening off” which is acceptable to either of my critiques.   Here is another, 

Screening off means, where A==>B==>C, A has no effect on C other than its effect  via B

Could somebody settle the typo issue for me. 

I will stop for now. 

n

Nick Thompson

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

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

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