I like your framework and it has some direct relevance to the other part of
this thread about McGilchrist.
I would add multi-disciplinary ("broadly skilled") modelers to multiscale
modelers and actually think them more important. Multiscale modelers might be
able to avoid composition fallacies but will still be trapped within a narrowly
defined model.
I would also go out on a limb and claim that metaphor and metaphoric reasoning
is key to being able to select a model that best fits.
davew
On Tue, Jul 15, 2025, at 10:41 AM, glen wrote:
> OK. That's helpful. If I reword it into my own words, one's ability to
> mentalize¹ about others state or intention is limited by the
> mentalizer's facility with modeling². If the mentalizer is a broadly
> skilled modeler, then they'll spend quite a bit of effort on model
> selection, choosing the best fit they can find in their toolbox. But if
> the mentalizer is a bad modeler, or only has experience with specific
> models, then they'll tend to use one of those models with which they're
> familiar, regardless of how well it fits their target.
>
> In that context, many people/pundits will not be skilled at multiscale
> modeling (where one takes great pains to avoid composition fallacies).
> So they fall back on what they do know. And every normally intelligent
> human is very good at modeling other humans. So when talking about a
> composite like a corporation or nation, it's likely that most people
> will use human models to model those composites.
>
> This means that the burden is on me, assuming I have more experience
> with multiscale modeling than many, to either (behind the scenes) do
> all the translation myself *or*, in an interactive context, help the
> modeler refine their modeling abilities. Whether I take up that burden
> would depend on the [Good|Bad] Faith of the modeler as I saw it ... or
> simply a matter of bandwidth.
>
>
> [1] mentalize - “the ability to attribute mental states (e.g.,
> knowledge, intentions, emotions, perception) to self and others” -
> Quesque et al 2024
>
> [2] modeling - here I mean anything from math to elementary school
> teachers who can teach children well to mystics with coherent
> metaphysics to fantasy authors who build complex worlds, etc.
>
> On 7/14/25 10:19 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> I don't have any good referenes to the way that individual behaviour
>> composes to group beyond the anecdotal (we've discussed whether a mob of
>> angry people is an angry mob?) but I do think it is an important topic to
>> understand. I think it is a corollary to how emergent phenomena/affordances
>> "stack".
>>
>> It is our "habit" to describe particles at all scales in the same mode, as
>> if the composition of "mass" and the energetics that they carry and are
>> influenced by (strong, weak, gravity, EM) or coupled through are entirely
>> familiar to our mundane intuitions developed throwing, rolling, bouncing
>> balls around. So if that fails in something presumably as cut/dried as
>> physics (subatomic, nucleonic, molecular, etc), why would we expect it to
>> work in the interactions of far-from-spherica cow-humans?
>>
>> To harp on my intersubjective ideas, I will claim (with little
>> substantiation) that the fact that our interactions among humans are
>> significantly moderated/defined/informed by our *beliefs* about one another
>> and about the systems we've created and engage in that in some cases, those
>> part-whole, metonymic/synechdochic conflations might be more motivated due
>> to that mediation through belief/expectation than for example, excpecting a
>> quark or a photon or even neutron to "act" like a billiard ball, just
>> because it is the convenient/common analogic/metaphoric referent?
>>
>>
>> On 7/3/2025 9:34 AM, glen wrote:
>>> I'm used to interpersonal projection. E.g. Joe Rogan's supplements vs. his
>>> accusations re the mRNA vaccines:
>>>
>>> Rogan's Big Pharma Scandal Keeps Getting Weirder
>>> https://youtu.be/bogYSu3cCLg?si=U1Jk93n5DC4gppdx
>>>
>>> But I'm not habituated to the analogy of projection ("lady doth protest too
>>> much") to national/party scale propaganda:
>>>
>>> Projection as an Interpersonal Influence Tactic: The Effects of the Pot
>>> Calling the Kettle Black
>>> https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01461672012711010
>>>
>>> I expect man-babies like Trump to accuse their targets of their own
>>> misdeeds
>>> (https://theconversation.com/why-trump-accuses-people-of-wrongdoing-he-himself-committed-an-explanation-of-projection-237912).
>>> And to the extent that the right in the US (including SCOTUS) believe in
>>> and achieve the unitary executive, the analogy between interpersonal
>>> projection and national or group projection will be more accurate. This is
>>> one reason why "projection propaganda" worked well for Russia and China but
>>> not so much for the US, because the difference in scope between an
>>> individual and a regime was smaller there than here in the US.
>>>
>>> So given that one of my whipping posts is that we bear the burden of
>>> showing how group behavior composes from individual behavior before we
>>> assert that the map is in any way coherent, I can't use "projection
>>> propaganda" without coming up with that composition. If any of you
>>> historians or journalists have any clue sticks to hit me with, I'd very
>>> much appreciate it.
>>>
> --
> ¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ
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