"the best way to predict the future is to create it". most often attributed to Abraham Lincoln and Peter Drucker.
On Thu, Jan 9, 2025, at 3:06 PM, steve smith wrote: > Glen - > > Very well articulated, the images such as "where the cartoons don't > weave together well" and "dog catches car" were particularly poignant. > I am reminded of Scott McCloud's maxim about panel cartooning that "all > of the action happens in the gutters". > > I'm unclear on your first point regarding whether "the Transformer is > categorically different from our own brain structures" (or not). I'm > not sure if the scope is the human brain or if it is somehow the larger > "stigmergic culture within which said brains are formed and trained"? > I'm looking for evidence to help me understand this. > > Your distinction between (pure) Science and (practical?) Engineering is > on point IMO. While I have also burned plenty of muscular and neural > calories in my life attempting to "form the world" around me, I believe > those energies have significantly been applied more like the "running > alongside the car" you evoke. I also agree that many are biased > heavily in the other direction. I'm not sure which of the SUN founders > said something like: "the best way to predict the future is to create > it". I don't disagree with the effectiveness of such a plan, the likes > of all the TechBros (billionaires or not) or more to the point of the > moment, the Broligarchs (Billioned up as well as now MAGAed up) are > playing it out pretty clearly right now. > > The question is perhaps more what the "spiritual" implications of doing > such a thing is? At the ripe old age of 68 (in a month) and a few > years into no longer seeking significant work-for-pay (retirement/failed > career?) I can reflect on the nature of the many things I asserted > myself against (work, homebuilding, tech innovation, travel, influencing > others) and have to say the very little if any of it feels like the > kind of "right livelihood" I now wish it had been. Having enough > material (own my own home and vehicles and tools and ...) momentum to > maybe coast on over the horizon of my telomeric destiny with access to > enough calories (dietary and environmental), I can be a little less > assertive at making sure the steep pyramid of Maslow is met than I did > in my "prime". > > I am currently focused on ideations about what the phase transition > between homo-sapiens/habilus/technicus/??? and homo-hiveus/collectivus > might look like. Your (glen's) notion that we are collectively roughly > a "slime mold" might be accurate but I think we might be at least > Lichens or Coral Reefs, or even Colonial Hydrozoans? Maybe I can do > this merely out of "idle curiosity" or perhaps my inner-apex-predator is > lurking to pounce and *force* things to fall "my way" if I see the > chance. It is a lifetime habit (engineering-technofumbling) that is > hard to avoid... hard not to want to "make things better" even when > I've schooled myself well on the nature of "unintended consequences" and > "best laid plans". > > Mumble, > > - Steve > > On 1/9/25 7:28 AM, glen wrote: >> OK. In the spirit of analog[y] (or perhaps more accurately "affine" or >> "running alongside"), what you and perhaps Steve, cf Hoffstadter, lay >> out seems to fall squarely into xAI versus iAI. I grant it's a bit of >> a false dichotomy, perhaps just for security. But I don't think so. >> >> I don't see architectures like the Transformer as categorically >> different from our own brain structures. And if we view these pattern >> induction devices as narrators and the predicates they induce as >> narratives, then by a kind of cross-narrative validation, we can >> *cover* the world from which we induced the narratives. But that cover >> (as you point out) contains interstitial points/lines/saddles/etc >> where the cartoons don't weave together well. The interfaces where the >> induced predicates fail to match up nicely become the focus of the >> ultracrepidarians/polymaths. So the narration is a means to the end. >> >> The question is, though, to what end? I'm confident that most of us, >> here, think of the End as "understanding the world", with little >> intent to program in a manipulative/engineering agenda. Even though we >> build the very world we study, we mostly do that building with the >> intent of further studying the world, especially those edge cases >> where our cartoons don't match up. But I believe there are those whose >> End is solely manipulative. The engineering they do is not to >> understand the world, but to build the world (usually in their image >> of what it should be). And they're not necessarily acting in bad >> faith. It seems to be a matter of what "they" assume versus what "we" >> assume. Where "we" assume the world and build architectures/inducers, >> "they" assume the architecture(s)/inducer(s) and build the world. >> >> In the former case, narrative is a means. In the latter, narrative is >> the End. >> >> And the universality of our architecture (as opposed to something more >> limited like the Transformer) allows us to flip-flop back and forth >> ... though more forth than back. Someone like Stephen Wolfram may have >> begun life as a pure-hearted discoverer, but then too often got too >> high on his own supply and became a world builder. Maybe he sometimes >> flips back and forth. But it's not the small scoped flipping that >> matters. It's the long-term trend that matters. And what *causes* such >> trends? ... Narrative and its hypnotic power. The better you are at >> it, the more you're at risk. >> >> I feel like a dog chasing cars, running analog, nipping at the tires. >> The End isn't really to *catch* the car (and prolly die thereby). It's >> the joy of running alongside the car. I worry about those in my pack >> who want to catch the car. >> >> On 1/8/25 12:54, Santafe wrote: >>> Glen, your timing on these articles was perfect. Just yesterday I >>> was having a conversation with a computational chemist (but more >>> general polymath) about the degradation of content from >>> recursively-generated data, and asking him for review material on >>> quantifying that. >>> >>> But to Steve’s point below: >>> >>> This is, in a way, the central question of what empiricism is. Since >>> I have been embedded in that for about the past 2 years, I have a >>> little better grasp of the threads of history in it than I otherwise >>> would, though still very amateurish. >>> >>> But if we are pragmatists broadly speaking, we can start with >>> qualitative characteristics, and work our way toward something a bit >>> more formal. Also can use anecdotes to speak precisely, but then >>> suppose that they are representative of somewhat wider classes. >>> >>> Yesterday, at a meeting I was helping to run, the problem of AI-based >>> classification and structure prediction for proteins came up briefly, >>> though I don’t think there was a person in the room who actually does >>> that for a living, so the conversation sounded sort of like one would >>> expect in such cases. The issue, though, if you do work in the area, >>> and know a bit about where performance is good, where it is bad, and >>> how those contexts are structured, there is a lot you can see. Where >>> performance is good, what the AIs are doing is leveraging low-density >>> but (we-think-) good-span empirical data, and performing a kind of >>> interpolation to cover a much denser query set within about the same >>> span. When one goes outside the span, performance drops off in ways >>> one can quantify. So for proteins, the well-handled part tends to be >>> soluble proteins that crystallize well, and the badly-handed parts >>> are membrane-embedded proteins or proteins that are “disordered” when >>> sitting idly in solution, though perhaps taking on order through >>> interaction with whatever substrate they are evolved to handle. (One >>> has to be a bit careful of the word “good” here. Crystallization is >>> not necessarily the functional context in which those proteins live >>> in organisms. So the results can be more consistent, but because the >>> crystal context is a rigid systematic bias. For many proteins, and >>> many questions about them, I suspect this artifact is not fatal, but >>> for some we know it actively misdirects interpretations.) >>> >>> That kind of interpolation is something one can quantify. Also the >>> fact that there is some notion of “span” for this class of problems, >>> meaning that there is something like a convex space of problems that >>> can be bounded by X-ray crystallographic grounding, and other fields >>> outside the perimeter (which probably have their own convex regions, >>> but less has been done there — or I know so much less that I just >>> don’t know about it, but I think it is the former — that we can’t >>> talk well about what those regions are). >>> >>> But then zoom out, to the question of narrative. I can’t say I am >>> against it, because it seems (in the very broad gloss on the term >>> that I hear Glen as using) like the vehicle for interpolation, for >>> things like human minds, and the tools built as prosthetics to those >>> minds. But the whole lesson of empiricism is that narrative in that >>> sense is both essential and always to be held in suspicion of >>> unreliability. To me the Copernican revolution in the empiricist >>> program was to emancipate it from metaphysics. As long as people >>> sought security, they had tendencies to go into binary categories: a >>> priori or a posteriori, synthetic or analytic, and so on. All those >>> framings seem to unravel because the categories themselves are parts >>> of a more-outer and contingent edifice for experiencing the world. >>> And also because the phenomenon that we refer to as “understanding” >>> relies in essential ways on lived and enacted things that are >>> delivered to us from the ineffable. One can make cartoon diagrams for >>> how this experience-of-life interfaces with the various “things in >>> the world”, whether the patterns and events of nature that we didn’t >>> create, or our artifacts (including not only formalisms, but >>> learnable progams of behavior, like counting out music or doing >>> arithmetic in the deliberative mind). The cartoons are helpful (to >>> me) for displacing other naive pictures by cross-cutting them, but of >>> course the my cartoons themselves are also naive, so the main benefit >>> is the awareness of having been broken out, which one then applies to >>> my cartoons also. (I don’t even regard the ineffable as an >>> unreachable eden that has to be left to the religious people; there >>> should be lots we can say toward understanding it within cognitive >>> psychology and probably other approaches. But the self-referential >>> nature of talk-about-experience, and the rather thin raft that >>> language and conversation form over the sea of experience, do make >>> these hard problems, and it seems we are in early days progressing on >>> them.) >>> >>> In any case, the point I started toward in the last two paragraphs >>> and then veered from was: when one isn’t seeking security and tempted >>> by the various binary or predicate framings that the security quest >>> suggests, one asks different questions, like how reliability measures >>> for different interpolators can be characterized, as fields of >>> problems change, etc. The choice to characterize in that way, like >>> all others, reduces to a partly indefensible arbitrariness, because >>> it reduces an infinite field of choices to something concrete and >>> definite. But once one has accepted that, the performance >>> characterization becomes a tractable piece of work, and the pairing >>> of the kind of characterization and the characteristics one gets out >>> is as concrete as anything else in the natural world. It comes to >>> exist as an artifact, which has persistence even if later we decide >>> we have to interpret it in somewhat different terms than the ones we >>> were using when we generated it. All of that seems very tractable to >>> me, and not logically fraught. >>> >>> Anyway; don’t think I have a conclusion…. >>> >>> Eric >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Jan 9, 2025, at 4:16, steve smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> Why language models collapse when trained on recursively generated >>>>> text >>>>> https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.14872 >>>> Without doing more than scanning this doc, I am lead to wonder at >>>> just what the collective human knowledge base (noosphere?) is if not >>>> a recursively generated text? An obvious answer is that said >>>> recursive text/discourse also folds in sensori-motor engagement in >>>> the larger "natural world" as it unfolds... so it is not *entirely* >>>> masturbatory as the example above appears to be. >>>>> >>>>> seems to make the point in a hygienic way (even if ideal or >>>>> over-simplified). We make inferences based on "our" (un-unified) >>>>> past inferences, build upon the built environment, etc. In the >>>>> humanities, I guess it's been called hyperreality or somesuch. >>>>> Notice the infamous Catwoman died a few days ago. >>>> I need to review the "hyperreality" legacy... I vaguely remember the >>>> coining of the term in the 90s? >>>>> >>>>> It all (even the paper Roger just posted) reminds me of a response >>>>> I learned from Monty Python: "Oh, come on. Pull the other one." And >>>>> FWIW, I think this current outburst on my part spawns from this essay: >>>>> >>>>> Life is Meaningless: What Now? >>>>> https://youtu.be/3x4UoAgF9I4?si=7uVDeiDQ8STTJtv7 >>>>> >>>>> In particular, "he [Camus] has to introduce the opposing >>>>> concept—solidarity. This solidarity is a way of reconstructing >>>>> mutual respect and regard between people in the absence of >>>>> transcendent values, hence his argument for a natural sense of >>>>> shared humanity since we are all forever struggling against the >>>>> absurd." >>>> >>>> Fascinating summary/treatment of Camus and the kink he put in >>>> Existentialism... familiar to me in principle but in this moment, >>>> with this presentation and your summary, and perhaps the >>>> "existential crisis of this moment" (as discussed with Jochen on a >>>> parallel thread?) it is particularly poignant. >>>> >>>> Thanks for offering some "solidarity" of this nature during what >>>> might be a collective existential crisis. Strange to realize that >>>> it might be "as good as it gets" to rally around the >>>> "meaninglessness of life"? >>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 1/7/25 09:40, steve smith wrote: >>>>>> Regarding Glen's article "challenging the 'paleo' diet >>>>>> narrative". I'm sure their reports are generally accurate and in >>>>>> fact homo-this-n-that have been including significant plant >>>>>> sources into our diets for much longer than we might have >>>>>> suspected. Our Gorilla cousins at several times our body mass and >>>>>> with significantly higher muscle tone live almost entirely on >>>>>> low-grade vegetation. But the article presents this as if ~1M >>>>>> years of hominid development across a very wide range of >>>>>> ecosystems was monolithic? There are still near subsistence >>>>>> cultures whose primary source of nourishment is animal protein >>>>>> (e.g. Aleuts, Evenki/Ewenki/Sami)? >>>>>> >>>>>> I'm a fan of the "myth of paleo" even though I'm mostly >>>>>> vegetarian. I like the *idea* of living a feast/famine cycle and >>>>>> obtaining most of my nutrition from fairly primary/raw sources. Of >>>>>> course, my modern industrial embedding has me eating avocados >>>>>> grown on Mexican-Cartel owned farms and almonds grown in the >>>>>> central valley of California on river water diverted from the >>>>>> Colorado river basin. <sigh>. >>>>> >>>>>> On 1/7/25 06:21, glen wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Archaeological study challenges 'paleo' diet narrative of ancient >>>>>>> hunter–gatherers >>>>>>> https://phys.org/news/2025-01-archaeological-paleo-diet-narrative-ancient.html >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Renee' convinced me to eat fried chicken the other night. ... >>>>>>> Well, OK. She just put it in front of me and my omnivorous nature >>>>>>> took over. Fine. It's fine. Everything's fine. But it reminded me >>>>>>> of the fitness influencers and their obsession with chicken and >>>>>>> [ahem] "protein". Then I noticed the notorious non-sequitur >>>>>>> science communicator Andrew Huberman is now platforming notorious >>>>>>> motivated-reasoning through evolutionary psychology guru Jordan >>>>>>> Peterson. Ugh. And Jan 6 is now a holiday celebrating those >>>>>>> morons who broke into the Capitol. Am I just old? Or is the world >>>>>>> actually going to hell in a handbasket? Get off my lawn! >>>>>>> >> >> > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. > / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. 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