[FRIAM] nice quote

[steve smith]

On 10/9/24 12:33 PM, glen wrote:
> Hm. I don't normally read the GPT output posted to the list. But I did 
> this time and am worse off for it. Your original is way better. 
> Anyway, I'd like to continue responding to Stephen's originalism and 
> your tangent into compression at the same time.

Because wrong or wrong-headed, or is that a false dichotomy?

>
> The idea that models are abstract is what I think Jon was targeting 
> with the bisimulation reference. There's no requirement that models be 
> less detailed than their referents. In fact, I'd argue that many 
> models have more details than their referent (ignoring von Neumann's 
> interpretation of Goedel for a minute). A mathematical model of, say, 
> a toy airplane in a wind tunnel (especially such a model implemented 
> in code - with the whole stack from programming language down to 
> transistors) feels more packed with detail than the actual toy 
> airplane in the wind tunnel. There's detail upon detail in that model. 
> Were we to take assembly theory seriously, I think the implemented 
> model is way more detailed (complicated) than the referent. What makes 
> the model useful isn't the compression, but the determinism ... the 
> rational/mental control over the mechanism. We have less control over 
> the toy airplane and the wind than we have over the tech stack in 
> which the model is implemented.
I'm not sure what it means in this context for the model to be more 
detailed than the referent?  The toy airplane in a wind tunnel is likely 
less detailed (or differently detailed?) than a real airplane in a real 
airflow but if the (computer?) model of such is *more detailed* then I 
think this invokes your "excess meaning" or "excess detail?" dismissal?  
if the computer model/simulation has more detail than the 
toy-airplane/wind-tunnel model of the fully elaborated "real" airplane 
in "real airflow" then does it have *more* than the latter? If so, not 
only excess but also "wrong"? If more detailed than the toy/wind-tunnel 
then simply closer to referent?
>
> Here's where aphorisms and "models" writ large differ drastically. 
> Aphorisms are purposely designed to have Barnum-Forer (heuristic) 
> power. Models often have that (especially in video games, movies, 
> etc.) power.
I appreciate this distinction/acknowledgment.
> But Good Faith modelers work against that. A Good Faith modeler will 
> pepper their models' uses with screaming large print IT'S JUST A MODEL.
I agree there is virtue in acknowledging the implications of "IT"S JUST 
A MODEL!!!!"
> Aphorisms (and all psuedo-profound bullshit) are not used that way.
And are all aphorisms by definition "pseudo-profound bullshit"?  Or do 
they still retain some profoundish-utility? do they in any way represent 
a (finessed?) useful compression?
> They are used in much the same way *inductive* models are used to 
> trick you into thinking the inference from your big data is 
> categorically credible. 

> I agree with Stephen that Box is mostly referring  to inductive 
> inference. But then again, with the demonstrative power of really 
> large inductively tuned models, we're starting to blur the lines 
> between induction, deduction, and abduction. That false trichotomy was 
> profound at some point. But these days, sticking to it like Gospel is 
> problematic.
I accept de-rigeur that "sticking to anything like Gospel" is 
problematic.   I'm a little slow at the switch here on the earlier part 
of the paragraph.. I will study it.  It reads at least mildly profound 
and I trust not "pseudo-so".
>
> On 10/9/24 10:49, steve smith wrote:
>> Now the original for the 0 or 2 people who might have endured this far:
>>
>>     The first clause (protasis?) seems to specifically invoke the 
>> "dimension reduction" implications of "compression" but some of the 
>> recent discussion here seems to invoke the "discretization" or more 
>> aptly perhaps the "limited precision"?   I think the stuff about 
>> bisimulation is based on this difference?
>>
>>     The trigger for this flurry of "arguing about words" was Wilson's:
>>
>>         "We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and 
>> god-like technology."
>>
>>     to which there were varioius objections ranging from (paraphrasing):
>>
>>         "it is just wrong"
>>
>>         "this has been debunked"
>>
>>     to the ad-hominem:
>>
>>         "Wilson was once good at X but he should not be listened to 
>> for Y"
>>
>>     The general uproar *against* this specific aphorism seemed to be 
>> a proxy for:
>>
>>         "it is wrong-headed" and "aphorisms are wrong-headed" ?
>>
>>     then Glen's objection (meat on the bones of "aphorisms are 
>> wrong-headed"?) that aphorisms are "too short" which is what lead me 
>> to thinking about aphorisms as models, models as a form or expression 
>> of compression and the types of compression (lossy/not) and how that 
>> might reflect the "bisimulation" concept 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisimulation .   At first I had the 
>> "gotcha" or "aha" response to learning more about bisimulation that 
>> it applied exclusively/implicitly to finite-state systems but in fact 
>> it seems that as long as there is an abstraction that obscures or 
>> avoids any "precision" issues it applies to all state-transition 
>> systems.
>>
>>     This lead me to think about the two types of compression that 
>> models (or aphorisms?) offer.   One breakdown of the features of 
>> compression in modeling are: Abstraction; Dimension Reduction; Loss 
>> of Detail; Pattern Recognition.    The first and last (abstraction 
>> and pattern recognition) seem to be features/goals of modeling,  The 
>> middle two seem to be utilitarian while the loss of detail is more of 
>> a bug, an inconvenience nobody values (beyond the utility of keeping 
>> the model small and in the way it facilitates "pattern recognition" 
>> in a ?perverse? way)
>>