Eco-logical disaster

[Martin Taylor 970410 13:20]

Rick Marken (970410.1010 PDT)]

> Eco never comes down squarely supporting any specific answer to
> any of these questions

Why? They look like pretty easy questions to me;-)

Why am I not surprised that you think so? Have you read and contemplated
the arguments illustrated in the book (Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose")?

Martin

[From Rick Marken (970410.1010 PDT)]

Martin Taylor (970410 11:30)--

Is "truth" something that is revealed to a chosen few, who
by virtue of their virtue are empowered to burn those who
propose some untruthful proposition?

No.

Is truth to be found in books that contain the wisdom of trusted
thinkers?

No.

Is truth something unknowable but to be approached by painstaking
investigation based on observation?

Yes.

Is truth something to be extracted by torture from those
presumed to know it?

No.

Is it the right and proper function of those who are good
investigators, or of those who _know_ the truth, to shield
the common people from writings that might, by being incomplete
or false, mislead the unwary?

No.

Eco never comes down squarely supporting any specific answer to
any of these questions

Why? They look like pretty easy questions to me;-)

Arguments that take the form of ridicule serve not to demonstrate
the inadequacy...of the idea being ridiculed.

I think Galileo's "Dialogues..." was the great example of ridicule
that served to demonstrate (at least from the Catholic Church's
perspective) the "inadequacy" of the ideas being ridiculed. I'm with
Galileo on this (as with most other things); ridicule and satire are
a wonderful way to deal with people who "won't look through the
telescope". It may not change their minds but it feels good and it might
change the minds of the people who are watching the show.

Best

Rick

[from Jeff Vancouver 970410.1500 EST]

[From Rick Marken (970410.1010 PDT)]

Martin Taylor (970410 11:30)--

> Is it the right and proper function of those who are good
> investigators, or of those who _know_ the truth, to shield
> the common people from writings that might, by being incomplete
> or false, mislead the unwary?

No.

> Eco never comes down squarely supporting any specific answer to
> any of these questions

Why? They look like pretty easy questions to me;-)

No is a pretty problematic answer. Did you in your Mind Readings book
describe all the deadend and stupid (in hind sight) experiments and
models? We are always trying to filter and it serves a useful purpose.
This does not mean the original should be hidden (which is probably how
Rick interpreted the question), but the reviewer or textbook writer who
selects the material she will use "shields" her audience. These are
indeed complex questions.

Jeff "once engaged, difficult to extract" Vancouver

[From Bruce Gregory 9970410.1440 EST)]

Martin Taylor 970410 13:20

> Rick Marken (970410.1010 PDT)
>
> > Eco never comes down squarely supporting any specific answer to
> > any of these questions
>
> Why? They look like pretty easy questions to me;-)

Why am I not surprised that you think so? Have you read and contemplated
the arguments illustrated in the book (Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose")?

I did, and I agree with Rick :wink:

Bruce Gregory

[From Rick Marken (970410.1200)]

Me:

They look like pretty easy questions to me;-)

Martin Taylor (970410 13:20) --

Why am I not surprised that you think so?

Which ones did I miss?

Have you read and contemplated the arguments illustrated in the book

(Umberto > Eco's "The Name of the Rose")?

No, but I liked the movie a lot. It wasn't "Double Indemnity" but it
was good.

Best

Rick

[Martin Taylor 970411 08:45]

[From Bruce Gregory 9970410.1440 EST)]

Martin Taylor 970410 13:20

> Rick Marken (970410.1010 PDT)
>
> > Eco never comes down squarely supporting any specific answer to
> > any of these questions
>
> Why? They look like pretty easy questions to me;-)

Why am I not surprised that you think so? Have you read and contemplated
the arguments illustrated in the book (Umberto Eco's "The Name of the
Rose")?

I did, and I agree with Rick :wink:

I guess, then, that you did not understand my point in posting the Eco-Mao
message in the first place. Nor, if you think the questions easy, do
you understand the arguments implicit in Eco's story in the same way I do.
Those questions _are_ easy if they are just posed within our contemporary
cultural context, and answered according to contemporary political
correctness. Eco's story is set in a difference social and cultural
context, and makes it clear that the answers may not always be the same,
or at least if they are the same, they may be interpreted differently.

If, on the other hand, your agreement with Rick refers to the actual answers
rather in the ease with which those answers are obtained--I also agree
with them. Which is why I wonder sometimes why Rick's actions appear
perhaps just a teensy bit inconsistent with one of those answers;-)

Martin

[Martin Taylor 970411]

Rick Marken (970410.1200)

Me:

They look like pretty easy questions to me;-)

Martin Taylor (970410 13:20) --

Why am I not surprised that you think so?

Which ones did I miss?

What do you mean by "miss?" If you mean "get the wrong answer," who is
the authority you trust to provide the truth (and if you do accept an
authority to tell you, you gave an untruthful answer to one of the
questions--there's a paradox for you:-). If you mean "which of my
answers disagree with your answers", then none of them; we agree on
all the answers.

What you miss is that I am not surprised you find the questions easy.
I have no surprise at the content of your answers. In fact I would have
been rather disappointed had you made any different answers. The actual
answers were not the point of posting the message.

Have you read and contemplated the arguments illustrated in the book

(Umberto > Eco's "The Name of the Rose")?

No, but I liked the movie a lot. It wasn't "Double Indemnity" but it
was good.

Which explains why you found the questions easy, perhaps. The movie was
a detective story set in the 12th century. That's the skeleton on which
the book is hung. The book is an enquiry into the nature(s?) of truth.
The movie carries almost none of the theme or tone of the book. Try
reading the book--slowly, if you can (it's a bit of a page-turner)--
and _contemplate_ the arguments as they develop. Don't look too hard for
answers based in your own cultural background, which is enough like mine
that our personal answers all agree.

However, at the risk of causing some disturbance to your self-image
perception, I may say that your actions do suggest that you are controlling
something that conflicts with whatever it was that influenced you in one
of your answers--the one about letting the common folk in on partial or
"untruthful" stuff. I don't think _that_ answer is easy, by the way.

Martin

[From Rick Marken (970411.1100 PDT)]

Martin Taylor (970411) --

I have no surprise at the content of your answers... The actual
answers were not the point of posting the message.

And the point was...?

The book is an enquiry into the nature(s?) of truth.

And Eco had a a good enough answer to his enquiry right in
front of his typewriter. Eco asked (according to you):

Is truth something unknowable but to be approached by painstaking
investigation based on observation?

The "good enough" answer to this question is "yes". The answer to
all Eco's other enquiries about truth are clearly "no". What am I
missing?

at the risk of causing some disturbance to your self-image
perception,

Why worry about causing disturbances to perceptions I'm controlling? If
I'm controlling those perceptions, the disturbance will have
little or no effect on them. Don't you worry.

I may say that your actions do suggest that you are controlling
something that conflicts with whatever it was that influenced
you in one of your answers--the one about letting the common
folk in on partial or "untruthful" stuff.

The question was:

Is it the right and proper function of those who are good
investigators, or of those who _know_ the truth, to shield
the common people from writings that might, by being incomplete
or false, mislead the unwary?

And I said:

No.

Now you say that I'm controlling for something "that conflicts with
whatever it was that influenced" me to answer "no" to that question. Do
you mean I'm controlling for something that conflicts with my goal of
_not_ shielding "the common people" from writings that might mislead
them? Do you think I have the goal of shielding people
(common or otherwise) from certain writings? If I am in a conflict
I certainly don't notice it.

Martin Taylor (970411 10:11) --

Here's how I think e-coli learning works. I'm sure Bill or Rick
will correct me if I am wrong.

Here I am:-)

(4) Procedure:
(a) Evaluate the criterion at the current location.
(b) Make a small change by moving the location of the point in a
random direction.
(c) If the criterion gets worse, return to (b).
(d) If the criterion gets better, make another change in the same
direction again

Step (c) is note quite right. The _rate_ at which random changes in
weights (that determine that value of the "criterion" -- really the
controlled perceptual variable) occur is determined by the size of the
error (the difference between "criterion" and reference setting). Step
(d) is not quite right either. If the criterion gets "better" (error is
reduced) the _rate_ at which random changes in the weights occur
is reduced. When (if) the error is zero, the changes stop completely or
keep occuring at some VERY low rate.

I see no trial and error-elimination in that

Each new setting of the weights is a "trial"; if the perception that
results from a setting is not at the reference there is an error.
So E. coli reorganization is a random, trial and error process. By
having the error be a _quantitative_ determinant of the rate
at which random trials occur, the process turns out to be _biased_
toward trials which result in perceptions near the reference
specification.

Best

Rick

[From Bruce Gregory ((70411.1530 EST)]

From Rick Marken (970411.1100 PDT)

Each new setting of the weights is a "trial"; if the perception that
results from a setting is not at the reference there is an error.
So E. coli reorganization is a random, trial and error process. By
having the error be a _quantitative_ determinant of the rate
at which random trials occur, the process turns out to be _biased_
toward trials which result in perceptions near the reference
specification.

John Holt has a nice (but scary) example of this in one of his
books (I think it is _How Children Fail_). He comments that if
you ask even a "good" student to solve a word problem that
involves division and the tell the student that the answer is
wrong, even though it is correct, the student will immediately
try multiplication instead of division! Clearly what is being
controlled by the student is the perception that the teacher
approves of the answer the student gives. The greater the error
signal, the more violent the "correction"!

Bruce