From [Marc Abrams (2005.02.0835)]
I suppose it was simply to good to be true.
Bill, is our conversation over?
Yesterday you expressed interest in a potential model if I could deliver one.
Was this ‘request’ a red herring? I didn’t think so, but it seems by your lack of a response that it probably was.
You said you ‘understood’ that you and I were ‘looking’ at different things and I believe you to be both right and wrong in this matter.
We are looking at the same thing. Just from different vantage points, with different goals in mind and different ideas about what the points of saliency might be. This last point though is a straw man.
Saliency is directly related to purpose, and since each of our purposes are different, the saliency points must be as well if we are each going to be consistent in what we are attempting to do.
Bill, your work is vitally important, and I am not asking you to forsake your love and interest for mine.
I asked for your support yesterday and maybe I need to spell out exactly what my expectations of that support entails. That is, what I would hope to get from you and others through discourse on CSGnet.
You asked for a model and said god was in the details. I agreed and added that data was vitally important to any attempt at building a model and I wasn’t even sure at this point if I was asking the right questions.
Framed a different way, I was saying I am not quite sure that I know exactly what data I need yet in order to build a effective model.
‘Building’ a model is not the difficult part. Getting one that represents what it purports to represent is something entirely different.
Mathematics can be a wonderful tool, but it must be used with a great deal of caution.
Mathematical reasoning is ideal for thinking about certain kinds of problems, and a real hindrance in attempting to address some others.
In order for deductive reasoning, or ‘mathematical thinking’, to be effective, the premises of an argument must be true. In fact, in deductive reasoning the veracity of any conclusion is known by the veracity of the premise. ‘Truth’, or ‘facts’ play no part deductive logic.
An example to illustrate might be helpful here;
Premise; Celestial bodies are made out of green cheese
Premise; The moon is a celestial body
Claim; The moon is made out of green cheese.
This is a perfectly legitimate ‘mathematical’ argument. Unfortunately the ‘facts’ are no where to be found.
How does this relate to the work we are attempting to do?
Well, numbers have certain properties, and mathematical operations have certain other properties. Are you as certain about how the properties of humans match those of the numbers. That is, what these numbers purport to represent in human processes.
I’m not at all certain. I think mathematical models provide extremely useful insights IF, and I reiterate here in big bold caps, IF the numbers are representative of the phenomenon of interest. And even then they are only gross simplifications of actual physiological processes.
I know you don’t disagree with me on this point.
Mathematical, or deductive thinking is NOT very useful for new discovery. It is very useful for ‘proving’ things that can be traced back to certain truths. I don’t believe we have many ‘certain truths’ in physiology yet. For discovery inference is needed, and inference implies both uncertainty and probability, not mathematical certainty.
Inference also ‘requires’ valid arguments. No less so then deductive reasoning, but the structure is a bit different and so are the techniques
Making a ‘mathematical’ model does not elevate something into the realm of reality. Relevant data might.
So, by ‘support’, one of the things I am hoping to get from any forum I participate in is some purposeful, constructive, and productive inferential dialogue going, so the right questions might be developed, data gathered, and models built.
I don’t need, nor do I want you or anyone else to build my model. What I would like from you and anyone else who has some interest in this area, is to provide the arguments and with the claims and evidence that supports those claims, in a manner that keeps the pile moving in one direction, and that is in a direction to better clarity and understanding of the issues involved.
If I am asking too much from you, or you have no real interest in where I am going please be forthright enough to let me know. Throwing mud balls at me will not deter me and makes you look rather small.
A lack of a response to this post will deliver a message of indifference to me.
I sincerely hope you find this worth your efforts.
Marc
I am, and what I am not, asking for here from you and others on CSGnet and what I would hope to get from you or any forum I am involved in, and as a member of