Darwin and Powers (was Re: Towards cognitive robotics)

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2017.11.16.09.17]

    [From Rick Marken (2017.11.15.2045)]

I like the analogy between Powers and Darwin. I have used it myself

in the past. But the analogy between Marken and Huxley fails in one
regard. When someone showed that Huxley made a mistake, I don’t
believe Huxley said that person was therefore an ardent opponent of
Darwin.

To err may be human, but bulldogs never err. Since the comment seems

to be aimed at Bruce Abbott and me for preferring the use of correct
maths over logical fallacy, which might suggest the bulldog had
erred, it might be instructive for you to reconsider the opinions
Bill had of both of us.

Martin

···

…

      RM: Yes, I've even tried dropping "William T. Powers" and that

doesn’t seem to work either. When Bill was around I was called
the “PCT policeman”, which made me feel good, though I would
have preferred “Powers’ bulldog”. But clearly I have not been
as skillful at bulldogging as was Thomas Henry Huxley. But
Huxley did have the advantage of opponents who were explicitly
anti-Darwin. Powers had (and has) the problem that many of his
most ardent opponents have ostensibly been his most
enthusiastic acolytes. I think that would have been an
insuperable disturbance to the efforts of even the marvelous
Mr. Huxley.

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2017.11.17.1250)]

···

Martin Taylor (2017.11.16.09.17)–

MT: I like the analogy between Powers and Darwin. I have used it myself

in the past. But the analogy between Marken and Huxley fails in one
regard. When someone showed that Huxley made a mistake, I don’t
believe Huxley said that person was therefore an ardent opponent of
Darwin.

MT: To err may be human, but bulldogs never err. Since the comment seems

to be aimed at Bruce Abbott and me for preferring the use of correct
maths over logical fallacy, which might suggest the bulldog had
erred, it might be instructive for you to reconsider the opinions
Bill had of both of us.

 RM: What would be instructive about reconsidering Bill’s opinions of both you? It seems like it’s my opinion that matters.

BestÂ

      RM: Yes, I've even tried dropping "William T. Powers" and that

doesn’t seem to work either. When Bill was around I was called
the “PCT policeman”, which made me feel good, though I would
have preferred “Powers’ bulldog”. But clearly I have not been
as skillful at bulldogging as was Thomas Henry Huxley. But
Huxley did have the advantage of opponents who were explicitly
anti-Darwin. Powers had (and has) the problem that many of his
most ardent opponents have ostensibly been his most
enthusiastic acolytes. I think that would have been an
insuperable disturbance to the efforts of even the marvelous
Mr. Huxley.

Rick

–

Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2017.11.17.16.48]

[From Rick Marken (2017.11.17.1250)]

I guess that has become blindingly obvious, whether it is about

mathematics, people, PCT, CSGnet, or anything else. Once upon a
time, Bill’s opinion did have some influence on yours, but that
influence seems to have finally decayed away entirely. Bill thought
that Richard Kennaway was pretty good at maths, and so did you not
very long ago, but Richard has now made the ultimate mistake of
disagreeing with your opinion on maths, so now he is no longer good
at maths.

(Incidentally, you still haven's shown your proof of the error in my

derivation of your “D” cross-product correction factor as the
product of V³ and a function of purely spatial variables.
When will you do that? I guess you will have to provide an
introduction to Markenmath first, though, because it can’t be done
in the math the rest of us were taught in high school. But that
old-style math doesn’t agree with your opinion, and that’s all that
matters.)

And so it goes on CSGnet. If anyone disagrees with an opinion

expressed by Richard Marken on any topic, they are clearly ignorant,
stupid, or deeply opposed to PCT. And every CSGnet reader must
understand that, or be included among the bulldog-bitten benighted
opponents of PCT.

Martin

···

Martin Taylor (2017.11.16.09.17)–

            MT: I like the analogy between Powers and Darwin. I have

used it myself in the past. But the analogy between
Marken and Huxley fails in one regard. When someone
showed that Huxley made a mistake, I don’t believe
Huxley said that person was therefore an ardent opponent
of Darwin.

            MT: To err may be human, but bulldogs never err. Since

the comment seems to be aimed at Bruce Abbott and me for
preferring the use of correct maths over logical
fallacy, which might suggest the bulldog had erred, it
might be instructive for you to reconsider the opinions
Bill had of both of us.

          RM: What would be instructive about reconsidering

Bill’s opinions of both you? It seems like it’s my opinion
that matters.

                  RM: Yes, I've even tried

dropping “William T. Powers” and that doesn’t seem
to work either. When Bill was around I was called
the “PCT policeman”, which made me feel good,
though I would have preferred “Powers’ bulldog”.
But clearly I have not been as skillful at
bulldogging as was Thomas Henry Huxley. But Huxley
did have the advantage of opponents who were
explicitly anti-Darwin. Powers had (and has) the
problem that many of his most ardent opponents
have ostensibly been his most enthusiastic
acolytes. I think that would have been an
insuperable disturbance to the efforts of even the
marvelous Mr. Huxley.

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2017.11.18.1220)]

···

Martin Taylor (2017.11.17.16.48)–

MT: Once upon a

time, Bill’s opinion did have some influence on yours, but that
influence seems to have finally decayed away entirely. Bill thought
that Richard Kennaway was pretty good at maths, and so did you not
very long ago, but Richard has now made the ultimate mistake of
disagreeing with your opinion on maths, so now he is no longer good
at maths.

RM: It wasn’t Bill’s opinions that had an influence on me; it was his demonstrations that his opinions (his view of behavior and his theory to explain it) worked. But I certainly think Richard is a very good mathematician; he’s trained as a mathematician, after all. I just think he is wrong about the results of a multiple regression analysis that would include log R and log D as predictors of log V. He was certainly right about the simple fact thatÂ

log V = 1/3 log D + 1/3 log R

correctly describes the mathematical relationship between the variables R and V.Â

Â

MT: (Incidentally, you still haven's shown your proof of the error in my

derivation of your “D” cross-product correction factor as the
product of V³ and a function of purely spatial variables.
When will you do that? I guess you will have to provide an
introduction to Markenmath first, though, because it can’t be done
in the math the rest of us were taught in high school. But that
old-style math doesn’t agree with your opinion, and that’s all that
matters.)

RM: I haven’t provided a proof of error in your derivation of D because whether or not there is an error (and I think there is not one) is irrelevant to my analysis. I think you have correctly shown that this formula for D:

is equivalent to this one:

which just shows that my way of computing D, using the upper formula with derivatives taken with respect to time, gives the same result as yours, using derivatives with respect to space. It’s just a little easier to compute D using the upper formula because the calculation of ds in the lower formula requires calculating the arctan of the time derivative. But the result in both cases is the result is the variable D in the equation:

log V = 1/3 log D + 1/3 log R

RM: How you calculate D has no effect on the results of the regression analysis and, hence, it has no effect on the OVB anaylsis that allows prediction of the value of the power coefficient that will be found for any movement trajectory by regressing log R on log V while omitting log D from the analysis.

MT: And so it goes on CSGnet. If anyone disagrees with an opinion

expressed by Richard Marken on any topic, they are clearly ignorant,
stupid, or deeply opposed to PCT. And every CSGnet reader must
understand that, or be included among the bulldog-bitten benighted
opponents of PCT.

RM: The fact that I’m usually right and you are almost always wrong about things PCT is not my fault. Blame it on a simple twist of fate. Â

BestÂ

RickÂ

Martin

–
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[MartinT]

[Martin Taylor 2017.11.18.17.08]

[From Rick Marken (2017.11.18.1220)]

We all agree on that.

So, if you agree that this critical fact is true, go the next step,

and substitute the previous expression, D = V³ times a
function of purely spatial variables, in this one. But Oh, I
remember, when I did that for you in order to assist your
understanding of the problem, your response was very angry.

Oh, really? .... Sometimes a little thought helps, maybe even after

a year of being entrenched in a hole created by a simple mistake. To
help you, just have a look at what the substitution really does –
it eliminates from consideration all the experimental data, and
proves that V = V. That’s all your OVB analysis achieves. That’s all
!!!

Or think of it as a questionable matter of fact, on which your

opinion and yours alone determines truth, as it does in mathematics,
and in everything else discussed on CSGnet. Just remember that a
long time ago when you said something similar, Bill chided you with
words close to this: “Think who you are talking about – Martin
Taylor.” But I guess Bill wasn’t very smart about that, was he?

Howsoever that may be, to label everyone who "*      disagrees with an

opinion expressed by Richard Marken on any topic, [is] clearly
ignorant, stupid, or deeply opposed to PCT"* is not conducive
to resolving scientific disagreements. Their resolution is more
commonly based on data and/or analysis, not ad hominem
attacks. Those are better suited to the political arena.

Martin

···

Martin Taylor (2017.11.17.16.48)–

                  MT: Once upon a time, Bill's opinion

did have some influence on yours, but that
influence seems to have finally decayed away
entirely. Bill thought that Richard Kennaway was
pretty good at maths, and so did you not very long
ago, but Richard has now made the ultimate mistake
of disagreeing with your opinion on maths, so now
he is no longer good at maths.

          RM: It wasn't Bill's opinions that had an influence on

me; it was his demonstrations that his opinions (his view
of behavior and his theory to explain it) worked. But I
certainly think Richard is a very good mathematician; he’s
trained as a mathematician, after all. I just think he is
wrong about the results of a multiple regression analysis
that would include log R and log D as predictors of log V.
He was certainly right about the simple fact that

log V = 1/3 log D + 1/3 log R

          correctly describes the mathematical relationship

between the variables R and V.

            MT: (Incidentally,

you still haven’s shown your proof of the error in my
derivation of your “D” cross-product correction factor
as the product of V³ and a function of purely
spatial variables. When will you do that? I guess you
will have to provide an introduction to Markenmath
first, though, because it can’t be done in the math the
rest of us were taught in high school. But that
old-style math doesn’t agree with your opinion, and
that’s all that matters.)

          RM: I haven't provided a proof of error in your

derivation of D because whether or not there is an error
(and I think there is not one) is irrelevant to my
analysis. I think you have correctly shown that this
formula for D:

is equivalent to this one:

          which just shows that my way of computing D, using the

upper formula with derivatives taken with respect to time,
gives the same result as yours, using derivatives with
respect to space. It’s just a little easier to compute D
using the upper formula because the calculation of ds in
the lower formula requires calculating the arctan of the
time derivative. But the result in both cases is the
result is the variable D in the equation:

log V = 1/3 log D + 1/3 log R

          RM: How you calculate D has no effect on the results of

the regression analysis and, hence, it has no effect on
the OVB anaylsis that allows prediction of the value of
the power coefficient that will be found for any movement
trajectory by regressing log R on log V while omitting log
D from the analysis.

            MT: And so it goes

on CSGnet. If anyone disagrees with an opinion expressed
by Richard Marken on any topic, they are clearly
ignorant, stupid, or deeply opposed to PCT. And every
CSGnet reader must understand that, or be included among
the bulldog-bitten benighted opponents of PCT.

          RM: The fact that I'm usually right and you are almost

always wrong about things PCT is not my fault. Blame it on
a simple twist of fate.

[rsmarken]

[From Rick Marken (2017.11.19.1000)]

···

Martin Taylor (2017.11.18.17.08)–

MT: Oh, really?

RM: Yes, really.Â

Â

MT: .... Sometimes a little thought helps, maybe even after

a year of being entrenched in a hole created by a simple mistake. To
help you, just have a look at what the substitution really does –
it eliminates from consideration all the experimental data, and
proves that V = V. That’s all your OVB analysis achieves. That’s all
!!!

RM: According to the power law V = R^1/3. So substituting V for R^1/3 in this equation we can write V = V. But Dennis and I (and others) have shown that, because of the way V and R are calculated, the mathematical relationship between V and R is actually V = R^1/3D^1/3. Again, substituting V for R^1/3D^1/3 in this equation we again get V = V. So, by your “logic”, the power law is as tautological as our OVB analysis.Â

MT:Â …to label everyone who “* disagrees with an
opinion expressed by Richard Marken on any topic, [is] clearly
ignorant, stupid, or deeply opposed to PCT”* is not conducive
to resolving scientific disagreements. Their resolution is more
commonly based on data and/or analysis, not ad hominem
attacks.Â

RM: I think I can say with some confidence that my “opinions” about PCT are based on a solid understanding of PCT that is documented in three books of reprints of published papers describing research that tests and advances an understanding of behavior in terms of PCT. So I think I can claim some expertise in PCT and, therefore, prefer to see my “disagreements” with statements about things PCT as “corrections”. I don’t believe I have said that anyone was stupid or ignorant when they made incorrect statements about PCT. But when people, especially those who have been on CSGNet for years, start making incorrect statements about PCT and then call me an enemy of PCT when I correct them then I am inclined to think (and possibly say out loud) that they are opposed to PCT. I don’t think of that as an ad hominum attack though I apologize if it was taken as such; I think of an ad hominum attack as attacking some presumed personal characteristic of a person, such as their ability to do mathematics.Â

Best

          RM: How you calculate D has no effect on the results of

the regression analysis and, hence, it has no effect on
the OVB anaylsis that allows prediction of the value of
the power coefficient that will be found for any movement
trajectory by regressing log R on log V while omitting log
D from the analysis.

Rick

Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery