[FRIAM] Adversarial Collaboration - Kahneman

[Steve Smith]

On 2/28/22 10:19 AM, glen wrote:
> Very cool! Thanks. I need this. I've made a new friend with an MD 
> focused on Psychiatry. She's a psychodynamics therapist (which I've 
> ranted about with Frank). At supper, I consistently used the word 
> "argument", e.g. "We have a lot of arguments in our future". She and 
> her husband kept objecting to the word "argument", insisting that we 
> use softer words like "discussion" or whatever. After lots of poking 
> and shredding, it came to the concept of foundationalism ... the idea 
> that there *can be* some common ground within which to be 
> collaboratively adversarial. I'm skeptical that such foundations are 
> even possible, much less findable and measurable. But as long as we 
> can identify *that* we're assuming such a foundation, defining a game 
> of some sort, then I can play along nearly as if I actually agree on 
> that foundation, at least for awhile.
>
> Maybe this construct will help us find a way to do that without anyone 
> feeling bullied.

And maybe for some (of us) the feeling of being bullied is necessary to 
activate the adversarial mode needed?   I sense that, among contrarians 
(of which we have a couple of full-timers and myriad part-timers here?) 
there is an ideation on their (your) part that your collaborator 
(opponent) *must* feel confronted (if not bullied) to achieve the 
activation potential that might be measured by Kahneman's "15 point IQ 
rise"?    As a subject of well-intentioned confrontation by "the Loyal 
Opposition", I do find contradiction, confrontation, disagreement to be 
useful to provoking/managing my own participation.

I am naturally both skeptical and critical on the inside but have been 
trained into being overtly cooperative in most contexts.  I think it is 
MY adaptation to real-world bullies who want to create a pretext for 
conflict that invites more bullying (see Putin v Ukraine).   I therefore 
(I think) seek out those who do not have so much of that adaptation but 
in fact, are not actually died-in-the-wool bullies... just ones who play 
that role on TV (or at the Pub or in Internet Fora).

Another fascinating (and relevant IMO) article in the Atlantic does a 
pretty good job of outlining a perspective on the complexity of 
self-other consciousness/awareness from a particular 
evolutionary-theoretic point of view.  Maybe right up Nick's alley?

    https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consciousness-evolved/485558/

This whole thing rhymes (I find) with the Generative Adversarial Network 
discussions we've had here in the past.

And for some of us, maybe we can fold in Hypergraphs also... ;^)

>
>
>
> On 2/28/22 08:19, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Glen wrote, a few weeks ago, about an old friend/colleague who had 
>> been out of touch who confronted him with having "bullied him 
>> intellectually" a while back.    I didn't think too much of it at the 
>> time because I experience Glen's confrontational style to be more 
>> about contrarianism than bullying, though on sensitive subjects it is 
>> hard not to feel any assertive disagreement otherwise.
>>
>> This list traffic, I find, has a mix of fraternalism and 
>> adversarialism that can be both disarming and uncomfortable at times, 
>> which I believe is part of the reason for the lurker/poster and the 
>> female/male participant ratios.   I may not be calibrated well on 
>> that topic.  It is just an intuition.
>>
>> In any case, the following Edge lecture on "Adversarial 
>> Collaboration"   really rung a bell with me:
>>
>> https://www.edge.org/adversarial-collaboration-daniel-kahneman
>>
>> He covered several interesting and relevant (to me) topics:
>>
>>  1. Confirmation Bias is widespread, insidious, and hard to detect in 
>> oneself.
>>  2. People don't change their minds.
>>  3. Healthy attempts to change another's mind can be beneficial to 
>> both sides in spite of the above.
>>  5. "Angry Science" is supported by mob/tribalism, but does not serve.
>>  5.   "Adversarial Collaboration" is a good alternative to "Angry 
>> Science"
>>
>> And most poignant to my own aging/transition process:
>>
>> */Old people don't really kick themselves. Their regret is wistful, 
>> almost pleasant. It's not emotionally intense./*
>>
>> All in all, I found the topic and Kahneman's treatment very 
>> interesting, both in observing the general progress of Science and in 
>> my own navigation through this ever-expandingly complex world, with 
>> or without the help of experts and peers.
>
>
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