tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1134273599464516252024-03-13T04:51:22.442-07:00harpersnotesComments too long for Twitter.harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-60028487126443011532018-03-15T13:14:00.000-07:002018-03-15T13:19:25.235-07:00Do indexes dream of humans?I tweeted a link to a book indexing conference with a comment about indexing maybe being the stuff of thought. Reiver kindly replied with some tweets on how search and indexing were viewed in computer programming. So here I'm trying to explain my thoughts more thoroughly, and then addressing the difference in computer programming. The follow are my mild musings, wild speculations, and some thoughts whimsical. I welcome constructive comments.<br />
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Imagine a host of nodes, or if you prefer something more concrete, biologists.<br />
They are using many terms which have the possibility of having different meanings to one another.<br />
The meanings are already there they just aren't evenly distributed, or consistent.<br />
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I've heard a possibly apocryphal story about L. Wittgenstein that after a conference in exasperation he said it sometimes seemed to him (some very high percent) of philosophy was discussing word meanings. (I've heard different versions about just how high a percent.) Wittgenstein explained language as a kind of eternal guessing game where participants tried to discern the meanings of others. It seems simple and natural to humans but is in fact extremely vague and complex. We would now call it a kind of instinct blindness. Like how fish minds think about swimming in water, of course everyone knows how to do it - it's so simple!<br />
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Chomsky, perhaps inspired in part by the emergence of computational linguistics around the 1960's, argued against Skinner's Verbal Behavior book that the possibilities for babies learning the meanings of word were under-determined. That there was a 'combinatorial explosion' of possible meanings babies could ascribe to teacher-behaviors and that there must be some kind of cognitive module providing a scaffolding for grammar and the learning of word meanings.<br />
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Pinker in The Language Instinct explicitly discussed such scaffolding as evolved, and in the context of reasoning instincts - humans are more capable of reason because we have evolved new instincts, not because we have lost instincts.<br />
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Imagine a host of biologists, before Carl Linnaeus. There are many taxonomies, often conflicting, designed around different ideas of what it is best to optimize (and around scientists' egos too no doubt.) Eventually the systems merge or become forgotten and what remains is the Linnaean system. (One might alternatively look at the nomenclature rules in chemistry, for example.)<br />
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At one level of description, indexes are pages at the back of a book with names of ideas and where those ideas are discussed in the text. Rephrasing, such indexes are collections of pointers to the meaning of ideas.(Aside: A very common index item is ".. (word), definition of" ..) It seems to me that in a very real sense scientific taxonomies are also collections of pointers to ideas. Only they are guides to how to converse rather than to a page where an author discusses an idea.<br />
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Okay then, that is all at the level of communication between individuals. What about within?<br />
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"Neurons that fire together wire together." - quip about Hebbs' learning rule (1949.) But a quip does not an explanation make. But even if it did here, I'm more interested in meaning and communication theory than the rabbit hole of neurology, at this point.<br />
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How do different parts of the brain know they are communicating about the same thing? Currently brain waves are being touted as the unifying principle. Okay. They probably have something to do with it. Maybe a lot. But I'm much more interested in functional explanations than mechanical ones. More ultimate causation and less proximate causation. Sometimes you can understand all the proximate causation you want, but still not understand the functioning. (Which is probably a good way of roughly describing the state of knowledge today about individual neurons.)<br />
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There have been some explicit comparisons of the hippocampus as a kind of an index to the memories in the brain. (Sorry, no cite on hand. Only general memory.) I like this comparison. It makes sense to me that the index should be in a particular place, centralized, in one of the most phylogenetically ancient structures of the brain. I like to imagine a brain wave travelling across the hippocampus like the eyes of a reader travelling down the entries of an index.<br />
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So this is what I implied about indexing being at the heart of the thought process - The meanings of a concept are distributed in different brain regions, like discussions in the text of a book, and linked together and accessible from different small areas of the brain's index. This is speculation. Or a thought in process perhaps.<br />
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(By the way, the part of the brain that includes the hippocampus continues on to form the amygdala, which has over the decades been a subject of much interest in brain studies of autistics. I've wondered just about as long if the claims around enlarged amydalae in autistics have been somehow overlooking enlarged hippocampi in autistic savants.)<br />
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Now as to what Reiver tweeted about the terms search and index in computer science. First of all, thank you. That's important information. By the way, cognitive psychology which often draws on computers as metaphors for the human brain, seems to define the terms similarly. (Search seems to be often operationalized in cognitive psychology as eye saccades, or some such thing.) Defining the terms that way is very useful, particularly in computer science. They are defined in terms of discrete proximal operations by actual equipment and registers you can point at.<br />
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But for me they are the same function, only one is an accumulated operation of the other. In short, roughly speaking perhaps, indexes are accumulated searches. The reason why indexes make searches faster is because they have done all the searching beforehand. Perhaps I will think on this more and in the future come to a different view. But for now, some metaphors -<br />
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In psychometrics the general intelligence factor is sometimes broken down into crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence. (Gc and Gf.)<br />
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In accounting you have Income Statements covering a period of time, and Balance Sheets at a point in time. Usually the Retained Earnings section of Balance Sheets shows the change in retained earnings from the prior balance sheet, in effect summarizing the income statement. Roughly speaking, Balance Sheets are an accumulation, summation, and transformation of all the previous Income Statements.<br />
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Maybe all those metaphors don't make any sense. Maybe they don't even make that much sense to me. But hopefully they help.<br />
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Perhaps explaining a little something about how indexers index might help. Typically they carefully read through the text (sheets from the publisher sometimes) and mark up the likely index main headings and sub-headings directly on the sheets. Then they type the headings and the page numbers and such into one of the professional software programs, which is mostly a sorting program (but not entirely.) Those are the easy parts. Then comes the editing. Deleting and re-organizing old entries, looking up new entries, over and over and over. I knew one highly experienced indexer who said he usually spent twice as much time editing as all the other tasks. The point is that the first part of indexing is search in reverse. You are at the location where the topic is mentioned, and you then sort that into the constructed index. The editing process involves looking at the collection of links/locators/locations in the initial index, and .. working the indexer magic to make sense of it and make it useful.<br />
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By the way, my impression is that In psychometrics people still write about Gc and Gf in the journals, but it doesn't seem they do it as much as they used to. I suspect it's because the tools being used to measure general intelligence tended to fall into the categories of measuring by way of crystallized intelligence (mostly vocabulary or world-knowledge tests) or fluid (computations, insights, etc.) Those issues don't seem to dominate academic interests the way they used to.<br />
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And that is why for me the concepts of search, index, and thought are all right next to each other in my hippocampi.<br />
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And now some things whimsical.<br />
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Why are back of the book indexes organized alphabetically? Why are they not organized more like a detailed table of contents, according to the structure of the material in the author's mind? It seems to be because the reader's may have a different sense of how the meanings are related to one another, and what would be a logical ordering to the author is not necessarily the same for the readers. Of course there is always the table of contents there at the front of the book for the reader to access instead. But I find it curious that the injection of a kind of randomness, a somewhat arbitrary ordering of the meanings in a text, can actually improve the communications from the author to the reader. (Of course, being alphabetical makes it easier to directly look up a term of interest. But again, the term of interest then is de-contextualized from the overall structure of the meaning of the book as the author sees it.)<br />
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Do hippocampi dream of editing indexes?<br />
It has often seemed to me that the accessing of never-before accessed old memories results in very clear images at first, but they rapidly degrade. What if dreams are the by-products of accessing memory components in the process of editing out the old no longer accessed memory index items? It might help explain why so many dreams go unremembered.harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-52672623367481133982017-10-30T17:23:00.000-07:002017-10-30T17:27:36.722-07:00The Clintonites are continuing to destroy the Democratic Party.<br />
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I've been puzzling why the Democrats have been going all-in with the campaign to paint Trump as a traitor. (The Dems in general and the Party-friendly Brookings Institution in particular.)<br />
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Hillary ran against Trump's personality, leaving the campaign issues open for him. -A disastrous overall strategy during the 2016 election. Normally for a first term President there would be some reaching across the aisle to the other Party to develop new programs. By continuing an all-out attack on the person of Trump the people at the top in control of the Democratic Party prevent any moderates in the Democratic Party who might be willing to work with the Republicans toward less extreme Republican policy positions. They keep control of the party by branding anyone who would vote with Trump's policies as failing to work together to brand the administration as traitors to the country. Even if Hillary doesn't run again in 2020, the Clinton faction will most likely be able to choose one of their own as the candidate. There's a lot of love for alternative candidates outside of the Clinton circle of power but let's face it, that by itself doesn't win political primaries.<br />
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The Democrats don't have enough support in Congress to impeach the President, even granting the charges of accepting Russian support and intelligence against Hillary are wholly and entirely true. And even if they are much more than the amount of involvement indicated so far, which is pretty minor compared to regular US involvement in foreign elections of other countries over the last century, including very probably Russia itself. Some history -- Nixon was impeached because (.. considering using all capital letters here....) he made an enemies list that included sitting congressmen and was trying to use the IRS as a political weapon to go after those congressmen (and if memory serves) some of whom were sitting on the very hearings committee to investigate the Watergate break-in. The political campaign 'dirty tricks' of Donald Segretti and others, the break-in at Watergate, the suppression of the Pentagon Papers, were very big deals but even all together it wasn't entirely clear a vote recommending impeachment hearings would have been fowarded to the full Congress.<br />
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I grew up as a Democrat. Most of my life I have been a Democrat (though I consider myself an independent now.) It pains me to see what has become of the Democratic Party under the current leadership. (Which to a large degree I think goes back to the 1974 special convention to deal with the aftermath of the 1972 McGovern debacle. The book to read is - The Whole Damn Deal: Robert Strauss and the Art of Politics.)<br />
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Most voters didn't think much of the Watergate break-in. Most voters don't think much of the Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign either. Like the Watergate hearings, most congressmen don't think much of the Russian involvement either. They haven't been put on any enemies lists, unless it an enemies list of the Democratic Party leadership.<br />
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There's the old idea that if the weather is good then the crops are good and the King is well loved by the people. There are many reasons why the US economy should do well over the next four to twenty years. China's economy is probably over-stretched. The shale oil and gas revolution are likely to keep the US energy independent for a long time. (The video to watch is ... global strategic analysis - Peter Zeihan on “The New President & the World .. ", https://vimeo.com/215078563 .. 68 min.s. Agree with almost all of it, but one big caveat is China's drive already underway to create a major high speed rail network from Beijing to the Baltic.)<br />
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Predictions: In the absence of any major changes (a big IF) the Clinton loyalists will remain in power and get one of their own nominated for the 2020 election. The 2018 mid-term elections will largely be a replay of 2016, as will the 2020 elections. (This doesn't make me happy. Trump brings change but he doesn't seem, to me at least, like he has a sense of overall strategy, or even worse, is trying to shoehorn everything about running a presidency into a standard simplified corporate business model.)<br />
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harpersnotesharpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-16380997997181845742017-06-30T12:30:00.000-07:002017-06-30T12:30:49.687-07:00<b>Soil biology as a subject and it's informational structures and flows. Part I. </b><br />
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During the early 1990's I happened to be present during the founding of a new academic field. A sequence of steps is usually involved -- Small meetings. Then meetings as a track at a larger academic organization's conference. Then small one-day mini-conferences. Then a journal for publishing results of studies done and of studies presented at the conferences. Then conferences of larger sizes. Then the full works -- award ceremonies, funding announcements; job announcements; web presence and so on.<br />
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So now when I look for the information structure and flows of a new area I'm interested in I look for those sorts of things. So I went looking for the equivalent for composting, or at least some near-equivalent. There were several dead ends to searches where the organizations I found were mostly set up to disburse information or sell various useful products.<br />
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The best I found, most relevant to what I was searching for seems to be the --<br />
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<b>United States Composting Council (USCC).</b><br />
Mission Statement: <a href="http://compostingcouncil.org/mission/">http://compostingcouncil.org/mission/</a><br />
The official magazine is Biocycle: <a href="https://www.biocycle.net/">https://www.biocycle.net/</a> ..<br />
Biocycle Events Calendar: <a href="https://www.biocycle.net/conferences/event-calendar/">https://www.biocycle.net/conferences/event-calendar/</a><br />
The 2017 conference is in Portland Oregon starting October 16th, <a href="http://www.biocyclerefor.com/">http://www.biocyclerefor.com/</a><br />
Previous conferences (scroll down). <a href="https://www.biocycle.net/conferences/about-biocycle-conferences/">https://www.biocycle.net/conferences/about-biocycle-conferences/</a><br />
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Sampling the Tuesday presentations of the 2016 conferences: <a href="http://www.biocyclerefor.com/2016/tuesday.html">http://www.biocyclerefor.com/2016/tuesday.html</a><br />
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It turns out you can download the pdfs for the talks apparently but when you try to open the pdfs on your computer you can't access them without a password. I tried searching unsuccessfully for a couple of names to see if they'd posted previews of their talks elsewhere on the internet. In some fields that happens a lot but probably not so much here.<br />
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So I searched World Cat for Biocycle.<br />
<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/biocycle/oclc/494598926&referer=brief_results">https://www.worldcat.org/title/biocycle/oclc/494598926&referer=brief_results</a><br />
.. Which indicates it is accessible at most of the academic libraries nearby: UNM, UNM HSLIC, CNM, and some others further from where I live. <br />
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I used to go to the New Mexico Health Sciences Library and Information Center on Sundays because it is usually open from noon until late and the parking is free. Ideally one of the places has actual physical copies of Biocycle and the conference proceedings books as I do so much more enjoy browsing through those.<br />
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Richard Harper aka harpersnotesharpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-6789907501204009702017-01-28T07:50:00.001-08:002017-01-28T07:50:26.889-08:00The limits of biological designsAllometry, biological constants, and theoretical limits to human IQ augmentation. .<br />
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Karlin tweeted - Are there any good articles making the case that IQ augmentation thru GWAS/CRISPR will be *harder* than Hsu/@razibkhan/@charlesmurray think?<br />
Source: <a href="https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/824990887977549825">https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/824990887977549825</a><br />
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That discussion thread mentions Kevin Mitchell's piece on mutation load (genetic load) as decreasing human intelligence from some ideal (Platonic form?) That is the first idea that came to my mind and it almost certainly plays some large role. But I'd like to suggest another way of looking at limits to IQ augmentation.<br />
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Allometry scaling is a way of getting at biological features that are constant across species by adjusting (typically) for body size. (Allometry seems to have some of the appeal in biology that physical constants do in physics.)<br />
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For flavor.<br />
Sizing Up Allometric Scaling Theory (2008) <a href="http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000171">http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000171</a><br />
Wikipedia for general background, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allometry">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allometry</a><br />
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Wikipedia mentions (quoting here)<br />
West, Brown, and Enquist in 1997 derived a hydrodynamic theory to explain the universal fact that metabolic rate scales as the ¾ power with body weight. They also showed why lifespan scales as the +¼ power and heart rate as the -¼ power. Blood flow (+¾) and resistance (-¾) scale in the same way, leading to blood pressure being constant across species.[31]<br />
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The limit on total lifespan (i.e. maximum lifespan) of species being scaled to body weight suggests a limit across species on the evolutionary design of heart muscle (or cardiovascular systems.)<br />
(Which by the way is why I find hummingbirds interesting, for if any species has broken the design barrier on hearts it is most likely them.)<br />
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It doesn't seem implausible to me that in the evolutionary design process of human brains those that are functioning at around 160 are already at or near the limit of maximum biological design, in the same way as heart muscle tissue -- Though with the difference being that humans are the solitary species that have reached such a hypothetical limit first. (I tend toward skepticism about the ability of current IQ test designs to meaningfully discriminate between IQ's in the highest ranges.)<br />
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harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-58877032028692230162017-01-06T11:53:00.000-08:002017-01-06T11:53:49.918-08:00Ottoman Millet SystemMy very quick and tentative take on millet system threads on Twitter. Caveats (see last part). 1820's. Royal court re-takes absolute power. Embarks on many expansionary wars. More territory, everything else (e.g. trade) worsens. Diminishing returns to millet system. Too many guns, not enough butter. Worsening resentment over time. Baki Tezcan might frame as a burgeoning proto-constitutional monarchy with strongly growing trade replaced by old system of royal absolutism and extractive militarism. I'd add that unlike the millet system trade can better help forge a national identity. The millet system 'national' identity was largely limited to religious, Sultan worship, and the military. http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/middle-east-history/second-ottoman-empire-political-and-social-transformation-early-modern-world <div>
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(Caveats: I spent three months in Istanbul 1989-1990. Read Bezcan's book, more than once. Have read a lot of history over the years. No professional status as historian or directly related to topic at hand.) </div>
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harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-63781439117721145362016-12-13T06:45:00.000-08:002016-12-13T07:00:08.511-08:00Too Many Chess PlayersToo many chess players spoil the strategy.<br />
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December 13, 2016<br />
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It was a common thing at the club when I was young - to pit a chess master on one side of the board against many on the other. The many often included at least a couple of chess experts as well as A and B rated players. The intuition of most people is that it should be an even match, or that the many would have the advantage, but the master always won. With lots of eyes on the board the many would catch all the tactical shots often even better than the master. But the long run strategy was consistently inconsistent. First one of the many and then another would persuade the rest on following one course of strategy and then on a different course of strategy. So they lost. Too many chess players spoil the strategy.<br />
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It has become for me a broad metaphor that I see in many different forms. There are the political implications of course such as in international relations and in trying to explain why the US Presidency has over time become increasingly about foreign policy -- you need a consistent strategy for winning The Great Game.<br />
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Today I saw an article about an interview with Marc Andreessen in the Financial Times. He talks of how investing has become more risk-averse, comparing the declining returns over time to stocks in new tech companies. He talks of how there are many who can individually say no to going ahead with a technology investment idea. So naturally I think, 'too many chess players!' Each of those who can say no has a range of acceptable risk they are willing to allow. In order to put together enough funding to ensure an acceptable probability of success the innovator has to satisfy the most risk-averse of those who can say no. The end result is to end up funding only according to the most risk-averse of the many.<br />
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And what about the 'wisdom of the crowds'? There is a lot that has been written about that now, but I'm only making a minor comment in that direction. At it's simplest level and as originally conceived the wisdom of the crowds is about taking the average of the individual estimates of something like the weight of a steer at a farm festival contest. I think what happens in chess strategizing and in what Andreessen is describing is that what is being sampled is the most risk-averse of the crowd.<br />
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All metaphors are not exactly the thing they are being a metaphor for, so of course all metaphors break down, which is for me when they become even more interesting. Then it becomes about the skillful use of the metaphor as a tool best suited for particular tasks and the search for new metaphors can more effectively begin. If those who can say no in the tech-investing case were to be restricted in their communications with each other, and in effect only allowed to do a silent bidding auction of whether to invest or not, it would probably make the most risk-averse less likely to discuss and move more toward the center. But in the case of chess, .. well here it's probably best to imagine postal chess - an pre-internet form of extremely slow chess still occasionally practiced where people living in remote areas find suitable competition by engaging in play-by-mail one move per one postcard. If the many were to first send a separate round of postcards to each other on the overall strategy they thought best for the next three moves or so (control the center versus immediate flank attack for example) and then vote, that might actually improve the strategy.<br />
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harpersnotes<br />
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Links:<br />
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The Great Game at Wikipedia (Central Asia) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game</a> .. <br />
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Andreessen interview discussion nub, <a href="https://www.isegoria.net/2016/12/the-financial-times-has-lunch-with-marc-andreessen">https://www.isegoria.net/2016/12/the-financial-times-has-lunch-with-marc-andreessen</a> ..<br />
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Those who say no (The Knights who say Ni! Monty Python) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHqy_AyKIUI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHqy_AyKIUI</a> ..<br />
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harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-25925291578611135812016-10-14T07:46:00.000-07:002016-10-14T07:46:12.104-07:00Obese Thoughts<br />
The conflict over whether to cut sugar or cut fat may become more clear if we control for the patterns of eating that provide cues which in the environment of evolutionary adaptation reliably predicted famine.<br />
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Here is some of my current amateurish thinking on obesity. Largely this is just an expression of the idea of the thrifty gene but perhaps more in the context of adaptationist thinking. Someone has probably already said these things.<br />
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Organisms are adaptation executioners. Genes have been selected upon to respond to cues of information about the environment of whatever the current replication-vehicle host is and to express accordingly. Famine cues include the number and intensity of hypoglycemic events. If famine cues are sufficient, a famine adaptation response might be triggered. Once triggered it is likely active for the rest of that gene-host's lifespan. (Here skipping some possible one-generation carry forward epigenetics discussion here through plasms of eggs and sperms in the host body.) If the famine adaptation response is not activated and there are sufficient fat stores then in times of low blood sugar burn those stores. Alternatively, if the famine adaptation response is activated then in times of hunger lower the metabolism rate and increase food-seeking behaviors ('hunger', 'appetite'.) Note that ingested fat generally burns slowly allowing a steady supply of energy, and low fat diets allow for more and for greater sugar-carb roller-coaster hypoglycemic crashes. One way to test this idea might be to compare populations for the amount of consumption of non-fat and low-fat milk, and perhaps butter too, in terms of subsequent development of obesity.<br />
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(Does some quick searching ... )<br />
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Of course there's a long history on whether non-fat milk is good, but in any case --<br />
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This study looking at dairy consumption and obesity got a lot of publicity back around April of this year. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26912496 .. Paywalled.<br />
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The Time magazine article that discusses it some: http://time.com/4279538/low-fat-milk-vs-whole-milk/ ..harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-76531028812929073292016-04-05T06:52:00.001-07:002016-04-05T06:52:31.171-07:00Bad PoetryDecades ago while wandering the halls of a physics institute
I saw a quote on door -<br />
'Probably everything I say in this talk should be re-worded as a question'<br />
(I think it was Niels Bohr.)<br />
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Elaborations:<br />
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(The pseudo-quote is entirely from memory.. decades old memory.. from something glanced at while strolling. As I recall it was posted on a door at the new-ish KITP(?) institute on the top floor of the old physics building at UCSB.)<br />
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(A little earlier I was thinking - Probably almost everything I re-tweet or tweet on Twitter should be re-worded as a question.)<br />
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(Haven't posted to this blog in a very long time. This is, in part, a test.)<br />
--------------------------------------harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-87556832412717253472015-09-17T11:03:00.001-07:002015-09-17T11:31:40.257-07:00Alice Dreger talk tonight at nearby UNM campusFor those who have arrived early at the ISIR conference:<br />
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Alice Dreger, who will be also talking at ISIR, is giving a talk tonight (Thursday) at 8PM on the UNM campus about 1.25 miles from the conference hotel.<br />
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Announcement:
<a href="http://news.unm.edu/news/unm-departments-host-talk-galileos-middle-finger">http://news.unm.edu/news/unm-departments-host-talk-galileos-middle-finger</a> ..<br />
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Map of the ABQ area:
<a href="http://www.mapquest.com/maps?address=Central%20Ave%20SE%20%26%20University%20Blvd%20SE&city=Albuquerque&state=NM&zipcode=87106">http://www.mapquest.com/maps?address=Central%20Ave%20SE%20%26%20University%20Blvd%20SE&city=Albuquerque&state=NM&zipcode=87106</a> ..<br />
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Map of the UNM campus:
<a href="http://www.unm.edu/~alt2015/UNM%20Campus%20Map.pdf">http://www.unm.edu/~alt2015/UNM%20Campus%20Map.pdf</a> ..<br />
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The location is room 116 in the Anthropology building, which is #16 along the left hand side of the main campus just east of University Boulevard<br />
(and for many purposes also the building 15 immediately to the west.)<br />
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Parking is generally free after 8PM, but it's probably easiest to just catch a cab ride at the hotel.<br />
<br />
For those looking for some exercise, walk east on Central and turn left (north) at University Boulevard. The first major street coming up on your left will be MLK Jr, and immediately east into the campus from there are the anthropology buildings.harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-48450954899807564972015-08-25T09:51:00.000-07:002015-08-25T09:55:20.049-07:00Skillets (cooking)<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Awhile back you asked me if there was a secret to cooking an omelet in an iron skillet. Yes. Bacon. The bacon and and the skillet are one. The best way of curing a skillet? Bacon. The best way of getting starches to not stick to the skillet? Bacon. Avoid bacon that's especially sugary. Uncured bacon seems to work even better, probably due to the absence of sugar. Sugar and starches seem to stick to the iron. </span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Eggs aren't especially starchy (as far as I know) but have something that binds to iron to inhibit bacterial growth and skillets are made of -- iron. (The history of this idea of eggs and iron is long and changes a bit every few years or so. i.e. Don't trust the Wikipedia article on this too much.) </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Vegetable oils don't work nearly as well as bacon. I suspect it's because animal fat consists of short and medium chain fatty acids and vegetables are medium chain omega-sixes. Possibly the shorter fatty acid chains migrate into the spaces between the iron molecules of the skillet better. (And then there's the whole other thing about vegetable oils being inflammatory.) . </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Beef tallow (is that the right word?) doesn't work as well. Too many minuscule pieces of beef perhaps. (Made from taking the juice from the slow-cooker after cooking a roast and putting it in a jar in the fridge until the white-fatty layer forms at the top.)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">(The preceding was modified from an email sent minutes earlier.)</span></span>harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-50100832038516174232015-08-20T05:35:00.003-07:002015-08-20T10:03:00.834-07:00Intelligence, Wisdom, Cleverness<br />
There's a new Quora thread - How do you teach children to differentiate among cleverness, intelligence and wisdom? http://www.quora.com/How-do-you-teach-children-to-differentiate-among-cleverness-intelligence-and-wisdom .. There are some interesting answers there, as is usual for Quora. But also as usual my approach seems out of tune with the rest.<br />
<br />
First what they are, and only then how to explain to a child: <br />
<br />
Intelligence is the ability to apply rules to situations. That is largely how IQ tests work.<br />
(Mathematics consists of systems of rules for converting axioms and postulates into theorems. Psychometrists often say math tests tend to be the most highly "g-loaded" type of test, where g is the general intelligence factor.) The best short definition I saw of intelligence (on a gifted education email list) was the number of times a person has to work a type of problem before it becomes easy for them.<br />
<br />
Wisdom seems to generally be the absence of cognitive biases. (Wikipedia has a very long list.) One very common bias is thinking of yourself as more expert at something than you really are. (See the Dunning-Kruger Effect.) Freedom from cognitive biases is developed slowly over decades of experience. Intelligence along with experiences and the personality dimension of Openness probably help wisdom develop.<br />
<br />
Cleverness, compared to intelligence, is seriously under-rated for most circumstances. Intelligence along with other things such as doing lots of homework will make you a success in the academics of math or physics but without cleverness you might never have an original thought. When the axioms, postulates, and rules are vague and uncertain, the ability to zero-in on possible solutions, the ability to generate plausible hypotheses for rules and then make those hypotheses work together toward solutions - That's cleverness.<br />
<br />
For six year olds:<br />
Intelligence helps you win chess games.<br />
Wisdom is what you gain when you lose chess games.<br />
Cleverness is designing new and interesting games.<br />
<br />
Digressions:<br />
(So cleverness relates very strongly to creativity and insight the way I've defined it here.)<br />
(There's an old spy movie where a main character put little postage-sized photos of people onto chess pieces.)<br />
<br />
August 20th 2015. rjh.harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-33795392559590230852015-08-14T11:46:00.000-07:002015-08-14T11:46:52.264-07:00Calorie Restriction terminology.<br />
This is written in response to a tweet by Razib Khan -- is what americans term "calorie restriction" just eating a normal amount of food proportionate to your activity levels? :-)<br />
https://twitter.com/razibkhan/status/632250659694227456<br />
(Might be a semi-rhetorical question. Anyway ..)<br />
<br />
(These lines were originally written as an intended series of tweets.)<br />
<br />
CR - the original version was based on Walford book ~1982 (in response to Pearson and Shaws 1981 Life Extension book.)<br />
<br />
As mechanisms-search proliferated, meanings of "CR" expanded (e.g. "CRON", CR with Ordinary Nutrition.)<br />
<br />
Informed use of 'CR' is usually about surpassing (species) ~maximum~ life extension. (e.g. 120+ y.o.)<br />
<br />
It seems to me an increasingly a small number of commercial promoters and journalists leave the interpretation ambiguous -- ~any~ life extension.<br />
<br />
Mechanism theories include that exercise counts toward caloric 'deficit'. (Yes kind of, not exactly).<br />
<br />
By the way, saw a very recent paper - every 20 lb.s long term permanent wgt loss - 200 cal. metabolic drop. Plus old observations that obese-prone mice strains benefited from CR most. So a Question: If a 260 lb. person 'strain' loses 60 and stabilizes at 200, is there a CR type benefit? (Yes kind of, not exactly.)<br />
<br />
Mechanism explanations appear increasingly 'less wrong'. More detailed and more molecular. Time-to-practical implementation still unclear. Maybe soon. Or not. <br />
<br />
(Personal note: I've been a skeptic of life extension efforts applying to humans for a very long time. I suspect it's my background in evolutionary studies and hence an appreciation of biological complexity that makes me so. Lately I'm slightly less skeptical. But note that on the longevity research lists all the proposed currently possible available treatments (various drugs etc.) all have serious risks and downsides.)harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-62396734885991868562013-05-01T13:22:00.002-07:002013-05-01T13:31:07.626-07:00migraines and rapid eye movements<br />
<br />
<b><u>Preface: </u></b><br />
<br />
Again, I decided against a long string of tweets and went with a blog, minimally edited.<br />
<br />
These notes are primarily intended toward a sleep researcher I follow on Twitter, <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" href="https://twitter.com/yusunbin" style="background-color: white; color: #0084b4; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none !important;"><s style="color: #66b5d2; text-decoration: none;">@</s>yusunbin</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span><br />
<br />
(Also, apologies again for not having worked out an easy way to html the links. Perhaps I'll switch to wordpress..)<br />
<br />
<br />
<u><b>migraines and the advanced sleep phase syndrome</b></u><br />
<br />
The following tweets are related to migraines, but that's just a primary nexus cognating with other topics.<br />
<br />
migraines. 1. DK1d and CSD type, <a href="http://www.sciencecodex.com/genetic_mutation_linked_with_typical_form_of_migraine-111467">http://www.sciencecodex.com/genetic_mutation_linked_with_typical_form_of_migraine-111467</a> (LoF?)<br />
<br />
migraines. 2. wiki on DK1d and disrupted circadians, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casein_kinase_1">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casein_kinase_1</a> ..<br />
<br />
migraines. 3. .. and circadians in 1992, intriguing paper, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1516220">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1516220</a> ..<br />
<br />
migraines. 3.1 .. migraine circadian parallels myocardial infarction, platelet aggregability, plasma cortisol, plasma catecholamines.<br />
<br />
migraines. 4. review paper, 2012, CK1δ, <a href="http://www.neurologyreviews.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=H7vDBaDbTWo=&FullText=1">http://www.neurologyreviews.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=H7vDBaDbTWo=&FullText=1</a> ..<br />
<br />
migraines. 4.1. "Both migraine and REM can be suppressed by tricyclics or MAO inhibitors"<br />
<br />
migraines. 4.2. (Standard bad phrasings about caffeine, which is actually ~in~ many migraine meds and not just for withdrawal dagnabitall.)<br />
<br />
migraines? 5 .. advanced sleep phase syndrome in elderly research site: <a href="http://www.neugenes.org/asps_of_aging.htm">http://www.neugenes.org/asps_of_aging.htm</a> ..<br />
<br />
migraines? 5.1. (hmm.. minor note that Wnt signalling (affected by DK1d) was/is a hot topic in molecular aging recently.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Errata</u></b><br />
<br />
Dream REM involves disinhibition. Dorsal raphe nucleus stuff. Stronger DRN signals = intense dreams?<br />
<br />
Does extreme noon-time drowsiness when young predict later development of migraines?<br />
<br />
About the numbering system above -- I've been thinking lately about the original BASIC programming line numbering. I don't care about the flaws, there just something about it I like.harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-40306492410532734322013-04-27T17:14:00.001-07:002013-04-27T17:17:03.656-07:00adenovirus 36 and obesityThese once were intended to be tweets. These are primarily directed at Dr. Emily Deans. Still haven't figured out how to automatically html the links -- Probably difficulty is a deliberate design feature by Google to prevent link gaming? I don't blog much.<br />
<br />
<b>Emily's tweet:</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="stream-item-header" style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">
" <a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="210226021" href="https://twitter.com/evolutionarypsy" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;"><strong class="fullname js-action-profile-name show-popup-with-id" style="color: #333333; text-decoration: none;">Emily Deans, M.D.</strong><span style="color: #999999;"> </span><span class="username js-action-profile-name" style="color: #999999; direction: ltr; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><s style="color: #bbbbbb; text-decoration: none;">@</s><b style="font-weight: normal;">evolutionarypsy</b></span></a><small class="time" style="color: #bbbbbb; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 1px; position: relative;"><a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav" href="https://twitter.com/evolutionarypsy/status/328283818291236865" style="color: #999999; text-decoration: none;" title="5:05 PM - 27 Apr 13">1h</a></small></div>
<div class="js-tweet-text" style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">
Children who were exposed to adenovirus were significantly more likely to be overweight/obese than those who were not .."</div>
<br />
<b>How I was about to tweet that: </b><br />
<br />
adenovirus 36 and obesity, http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/126/4/721.long … ht Emily Deans, M.D. @evolutionarypsy<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>My follow-up and comments: </b><br />
<br />
adenovirus 36 and obesity, the wiki on it, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenovirus_serotype_36 ..<br />
<br />
adenovirus prevention vaccine discontinued/reinstated?, paragraph at wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenovirus ..<br />
<br />
adenovirus 4 prevention army vaccine, http://www.army.mil/article/68351/USAMRMC_protects_Soldiers_against_unseen_enemy/ ..<br />
<br />
adenovirus 4 prevention vaccine, (".. 99.3 percent protection against febrile respiratory illnesses due to the adenovirus type 4 ")<br />
<br />
adenovirus 4 prevention vaccine, ("[Adenovirus] infections cause approximately 15,000 illnesses per year in basic trainees.")<br />
<br />
adenovirus vaccine (?) patent application for NAFLD, Feb 2012, http://www.google.com/patents/US20120027845 ..<br />
<br />
adenovirus, CDC pages, http://www.cdc.gov/adenovirus/hcp/index.html ...<br />
<br />
adenovirus, CDC pages, "A person can shed the virus for months or years and not have symptoms."<br />
<br />
adenovirus, CDC pages, Currently, there is no adenovirus vaccine available for the general public.<br />
<br />
adenovirus, CDC pages, current status of US military vaccine program: http://www.cdc.gov/adenovirus/hcp/prevention-treatment.html ..<br />
<br />
adenovirus and obesity -- so a question -- any follow-up on possible lessened obesity rates in treated veterans?<br />
<br />harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-16132701001968953832013-03-13T06:56:00.000-07:002013-03-13T07:05:25.832-07:00Sometimes I tweet links to very technical, difficult material. Why?Long ago I played tournament chess. Conventional wisdom was that one of the fastest ways to improve was to play against the toughest possible opponents, which meant playing in the top or Open Sections of tournaments. My direct personal experience strongly confirmed that.<br />
<br />
Though I wonder if I should preface my tweets of such difficult material with "technical", or "wonkish", or some such warning for those who are more casually skimming the internet.<br />
<br />
I don't claim to always understand all or even most of the material (though sometimes I do). But nearly always I find that after having read the material (sometimes while checking out the relevant wikipedia entries) my understanding is at least a little greater than it was before.harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-69314165423087952212013-03-07T21:23:00.001-08:002013-03-07T21:23:19.062-08:00Notes for Thursday, March 7th 2013Some select notes on this day:<br />
<br />
<br />
academic stress level survey, http://www.ucu.org.uk/6538#.UThRP6mOIfB.mailto<br />
<br />
A.I., multistability in a neuron model with network feedback http://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0021364012230087 …<br />
<br />
brains, mouse chimeras with human glia show improved learning performance, http://io9.com/5988969/scientists-enhance-intelligence-of-mice-with-human-brain-cells ..<br />
<br />
collective intelligence resources,<br />
http://www.scip.org/files/resources/tovey-collective-intelligence.pdf …<br />
<br />
Democracy Now, Operation Condor, Coordinated Campaign By Latin American Dictatorships To Kill Leftists http://owl.li/ivyUb<br />
<br />
education and computers, no benefit of having a computer at home for 6-10th grade kids' school outcomes, N = 1123. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2223118 …<br />
<br />
education, Head Start evaluation, (minimal effect; publication long-delayed; mainstream media fail; Brookings Inst.) http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2010/01/21-head-start-whitehurst ..<br />
<br />
education, single-sex classrooms benefit females' (but not males') performance, via reduction in StereotypeThreat, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2223114 …<br />
<br />
exercise and will, .. exercise improves self-control in youth and young adults http://m.healthday.com/iphone_article.htm?CID=0B3F45B2&NFID=C&articleId=674180 …<br />
<br />
food, cheese and paleo, http://www.marksdailyapple.com/cheese-unhealthy/#axzz2MoBKCVkm<br />
<br />
food, veganism, Barbara J King article, http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/03/07/173436485/discuss-is-humane-meat-an-oxymoron<br />
<br />
foods, gmo and sterility, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eilDbdLAyFs<br />
<br />
genomes and endosymbionts, Drosophila and Spiroplasma, via @fly_papers, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23462112 ...<br />
<br />
genomics conf. fogm13, "future of genomic medicine" = fogm<br />
GholsonLyon. science is divided into silos guarded by silverback gorillas preventing data sharing. #mixedmetaphorFTW<br />
GholsonLyon. the future of genomics medicine is going to come from companies like 23andme. doesn't see it happening from academia..<br />
AT Using a google page rank parallel to describe gene ranking #FOGM13 pic.twitter.com/1UZb53h9Ad conference site, http://www.scripps.org/events/the-future-of-genomic-medicine-vi-march-7-2013 ..<br />
<br />
genomics primer/tutorials at Scripps, http://www.stsiweb.org/index.php/education_training/primer/ ..<br />
<br />
happiness and work, 2013 0307,<br />
HSE (2008) Psychosocial Working Conditions in Britain in 2008<br />
Statements rated by respondents:<br />
I can decide when to take a break. I have a say in my own work speed. I have a choice in deciding how to do my work. I have a choice in deciding what I do at work. I have some say over the way I work. My working time can be flexible.<br />
<br />
intrusiveness, I can remember when folks were shocked at the idea of routine drug testing as a condition of employment. Tantra Dad @mattcornell<br />
<br />
marketing psychology history, Scientific Psychology book 1923, http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/03/scientific-advertising/<br />
<br />
medical costs, Diabetes cost $245 billion in the US last year. http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/1965185 … evolutionarypsy<br />
<br />
medical hubris, doctor knows best, Razib's encounter, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2013/03/your-health-is-your-health<br />
<br />
medical hubris, Doctor Pontificate, .. one definition of pontificate, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/pontificate_1 ..<br />
<br />
medicine science-clinical gap, Scientists shocked by the paucity of data a clinician looks at. #FOGM13 drsteventucker Snyder hits a common theme, ...<br />
<br />
Mooc design, It suddenly occurs to me that I am an expert in hunter-gatherer demography, and we need h-g group structure in a #mooc johnhawks<br />
<br />
noise, how the brain filters out background noise http://scim.ag/15ybBIw, selective entrainment hypothesis studied in epilepsy patients<br />
<br />
Parent-Offspring Conflict and the Persistence of Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension in Modern Humans http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056821..<br />
<br />
relationships, apps to deal with a messy break-up, by eradicating an ex- online http://nyti.ms/YNVGiT<br />
<br />
smartphones, a wearable camera to increase the accuracy of dietary analysis http://bit.ly/12Zi2FW (take photos of meals)<br />
<br />
solar system, planets and Sun to scale, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151486624310155&set=a.496176595154.294030.8798180154&type=1<br />
<br />
transcripts, .. transcripts of #MOOC lectures. One 15-min lecture has only 2000 words. A great lecture in person but trite to read. johnhawks<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-80244575844212025002013-01-03T04:06:00.002-08:002013-01-03T07:40:44.509-08:00Innovation and Immersion<br />
Yesterday I re-worded (a little) the information in an article on innovation ...<br />
<br />
99 Percent Of Innovation Methods Are Based On A Brain Model We Rejected A Decade Ago<br />
<br />
by @maxnisen http://read.bi/ZUy3MO<br />
<br />
(.. rejection of the idea that brain-storming works by turning off the "left-brain" analytic mind)<br />
<br />
my re-wording:<br />
<br />
Immersion. Analysis. Permutation. Reframe.<br />
<br />
Charles then tweeted some good points --<br />
<br />
@harpersnotes Re https://twitter.com/tbi_warroom/status/286513057813905408 … I find innovate ideas happen for me when I don't focus on the problem or even...<br />
<br />
@harpersnotes ... or even distract myself with other things. Also, when I'm not focusing on anything, and my mind just wanders.<br />
<br />
@harpersnotes ... Different times of the day seem to be better. (Not sure if it is b/c of time of day or b/c of what I'm doing.)<br />
<br />
@harpersnotes ... (Engineering is full of innovating. Well, at least the type I've been involved with. New problems to solve most the time.)<br />
<br />
This very early morning I awoke (.. from yet another night of annoyingly vivid and intense dreams, totally "by the way") and I started writing a tweet reply, which became many, which became.. well... this --<br />
<br />
Taking-a-break seems important for innovation as it allows for seeing new perspectives/permutations.<br />
But see Hedgehog-Fox...<br />
<br />
"The Hedgehog and the Fox" essay by Isaiah Berlin, background at wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox ..<br />
<br />
I do not think immersion is a hedgehog strategy, though some may intuit it so.<br />
<br />
Foxes forecast better, Tetlock 2007 essay, (scroll down to summary), http://longnow.org/seminars/02007/jan/26/why-foxes-are-better-forecasters-than-hedgehogs/ ..<br />
<br />
Immersion strategy optimized when informed by various perspective-shifting strategies, short breaks are but one common example.<br />
<br />
Related: Searching for word/phrase to describe, for example, training at blindfold chess to improve regular-chess tournament performance.<br />
<br />
Innovation and "play" -- "work" mind-set might blocks innovative thought. Breaks allow for play psychological milieu-perspective to re-set.<br />
<br />
Innovation and "play" -- notice that children's play often involves pretend-play, a kind of perspective-taking contra to reality.<br />
<br />
Digressions:<br />
Aside: Peeve -- Theory of Mind often interpreted as building block for perspective-taking. The mind is more modular than that.<br />
(Admittedly weird question: Are aspie-ish Science Fiction nerds superior at play-imagining hypothetical worlds?)<br />
<br />
Tangents:<br />
There is an old story that I vaguely recall as being in The Histories by Herodotus, that the ancient Persians would discuss important matter twice -- once when drunk, and the next morning after sobering up.<br />
There is an old idea that levels of activity of various brain molecules fluctuate over time, such as that dopamine levels of activity are higher in the AM, for example.<br />
I've heard this idea, and recall reading it, but don't recall offhand any cites for it.<br />
If so, this could be a more longer time scale of what I think of as temporal modularity, though currently I'm mostly thinking of it in terms of brain waves.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-60022545275916751992012-11-16T06:02:00.000-08:002012-11-16T06:02:12.211-08:00Hoarding Doggerel<br />
(This mornings' doggerel)<br />
<br />
Why I hoard<br />
More toys, so I'm less bored<br />
Growing up with less compared to others - feeling poor<br />
The MacGuyver ability makes for recombinant possibilities galore <br />
Propped against a backyard wall I've kept an old door<br />
In the summer on some bricks it's a sunning deck - what it's for<br />
fMRI ACC activation means searching for uses? .. "thinking" more?<br />
The OCD connection I think is a ~bit~ over-reaching<br />
(Some professors should stick to teaching)<br />
<br />
<u>Additional blahblah: </u><br />
"Cognitive flexibility" examples typically involve finding multiply or unusual uses for everyday items. i.e. MacGuyvering. In The Eiger Sanction the assassin's superpower is that everything and anything is a deadly weapon. In hoarding, everything's a resource, but in the Sanction the assassin's power makes it so he can travel light and pass a search for weapons. Would the assassin be a hoarder at home? The distinction here might be between mapping from uses to objects versus mapping from objects to uses.<br />
<br />
ACC is anterior cingulate cortex. The current hot spot for the homunculus (sigh). For homunculous related issues, in econ see Tattonement, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walrasian_auction. (I'd always argue process over identity, operationalizing, .. and end up annoying people. Going up an abstraction level generally does that.)<br />
<br />
I don't really hoard ... much ... except for maybe the hundred-plus boxes of academic papers.<br />
<br />
<u>Links:</u><br />
Szalavitz article, Aug 07, 2012.<br />
http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/07/inside-the-hoarders-brain-a-unique-problem-with-decision-making/<br />
<br />
Pay Attention blog, Nov. 14, 2012,<br />
http://blog.stephenharred.com/post/35717806357/possibilities-decay-dont-hoard-them<br />
<br />
Tattonement, in Walrasian Auctions, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walrasian_auction.<br />
<br />
<u>Addendum:</u><br />
Is this post just more clutter? Memo to self: Delete old posts, including this one soon.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-35423301515772498532012-11-05T07:16:00.001-08:002012-11-05T11:53:32.609-08:00Rhyming PrimesHow much easier it would be<br />
<br />
if following Turing<br />
<br />
computers used base three.<br />
<br />
Red, green, blue, each off or on.<br />
<br />
And then base six - perfect for primes.<br />
<br />
So down with the Roman base ten! Down with the Centurion!<br />
<br />
<i>Base 12</i> is better for these times.<br />
<br />
---------------------<br />
<br />
(Base 6 and primes, a little on.., <a href="http://primes.utm.edu/notes/faq/six.html">http://primes.utm.edu/notes/faq/six.html</a> )<br />
<br />
(The base three idea using colors was suggested by Turing and used by him to suggest base six for computation. I read this in some recently declassified Bletchley Park papers last year or so. So.. IIRC.)<br />
<br />
(In fairness though base ten is probably better for illiterate peoples so they can count on their fingers.) harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-24490340159369454892012-10-19T08:36:00.001-07:002012-10-19T08:37:24.255-07:00Phds: Knowledge isn't yet power.It seems to very often be true that the people who know the most about
the newest findings in a field are the newest and brightest graduates
from the best schools, in graduate school and in medicine. Older
scientists/doctors tend to specialize, and then even within that
specialization tend to lag behind as the context of other discoveries
impact what it is they are specialized in. -- Written in an email to my Mom about her granddaughter, the doctor. 2012 October 19.harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-13871704911704923602012-02-15T06:34:00.000-08:002012-02-15T06:40:26.201-08:00The Right Tools(This is what happens when I dash-off some writing too early in the morning. I'm still almost in a dream-state.) <br /><br />The Right Tools<br /><br />Post-WWII physics-envy eventually led to the Skinnerian model of Radical Behaviorism for American academic research psychology. Over time the model (as models are wont to do) became increasingly plagued with diminishing marginal research accomplishments despite near total domination of the funding and talent landscapes. When desktop computers became widespread (again, in America) beginning around the early 1970s Cognitive Psychology quickly took over and began it's rise to become the new dominant model. (ooRaNoos, Kronos, Zeus, ...) But as before, all models are metaphors and all metaphors are just tools for better approximating partial truths. (Ergo the tasks of Science are never-ending.) Only twenty years later in the early 1990s Evolutionary Psychology met a great deal of resistance from mainstream psychology, in part I suspect because most of the professors clearly remembered, and many had participated, in the arguments against the dominance of Skinnerian Radical Behaviorism and saw Evolutionary Psychology as just the latest form of methodological imperialism ("biological imperialism") from a new direction. The critics of E.P. frequently defined it as being so narrow as to be useless, though the founders much more frequently talked and wrote about conceptual unification. (For an example see online "Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer". It's about 60 pages, all excellent.) (I wonder if during the intial rise of a metaphor/method within a science there is an emphasis on unification, and later the language becomes more imperialistic? Fortunately, I guess, Evolutionary Psychology is still a very young field, as the history of such fields go.) <br /><br />(And, well, you just ~knew~ this was coming.. there's a metaphor for that.) <br /><br />John Watson wrote Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy, published in 2003. In it he discusses the 150 year history of different schools of thought about chess. (..Soviet system, Ukrainian, Nimzovich's, Hyper-Modern, and so on. Though the categorization as schools didn't really became common until philosopher and friend-of-Einstein world chess champion Emmanual Lasker wrote his books.) I'd highly recommend the final chapter to just about everyone. (From what I recall from skimming a copy of his book from the library.. ) Watson argues that the decline of Schools of chess reflects the increasing realization that the adoption of any given system by a grandmaster in the over-the-board play by that grandmaster exposes them to the weaknesses of that system, and that all systems ultimately have weaknesses because they are ~just~ systems, approximate metaphors, tools developed for certain classes of problems that recurr in chess positions. Watson concludes that the different systems remain as useful teaching tools, but that at some point if students are to progress to the highest levels in chess they have to grow beyond the limitations of each -- conceptual unification. The sorts of rules that people put forth as "universal" tend to eventually result in diminishing usefulness. Rules mislead. There is only the specific position of the chessboard the grandmaster is analyzing. I am not entirely sure I agree with Watson in his final chapter, but for now it seems a useful way of thinking about things. <br /><br />Richard J. Harper (a.k.a. harpersnotes)<br /><br />Prescript: Nine hours earlier I tweeted the following in response to thinking about a comment Razib had made in his Discover Blog about some academic fields "more fundamental". <br />Are algorithmic or axiomatic approaches "more fundamental"? Can axioms be derived from algorithms? (Kurt Godel?) (Sci method --> physics?)<br /><br />Personal note: The first chess book I ever studied, long long ago, was by Emmanual Lasker. Now it's out of print and almost impossible to find. I remember it as being vaguely similar to Euclid's Elements.harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-47258221641888524532012-01-13T12:45:00.000-08:002012-01-13T13:29:50.636-08:00Chocolate, 2012 Jan 13(This is not one of my areas of expertise so feel free to comment any corrections and such.)<br /><br />Hot chocolate seems to maximize theobromine content. <br /><br />"theo" as in theology, for "gods", and bromine comes from broma, for food. So, "food of the gods". <br /><br />theobromine, chemistry basics of, at erowid,<br /><a href="http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/chocolate/chocolate_chemistry.shtml">http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/chocolate/chocolate_chemistry.shtml</a><br /><br />theobromine, wiki page for, <br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobromine">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobromine</a><br /><br />theobromine poisoning, wiki has a separate entry for, <br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobromine_poisoning">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobromine_poisoning</a><br /><br />theobromine pills, <br /><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=theobromine&hl=en&prmd=imvns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=-o4QT68kyJaJAuypzcEN&ved=0CJkBEK0E ">https://www.google.com/search?q=theobromine&hl=en&prmd=imvns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=-o4QT68kyJaJAuypzcEN&ved=0CJkBEK0E</a><br /><br />ancient chocolate alcoholic beverage, <br /><a href="http://www.penn.museum/sites/biomoleculararchaeology/?page_id=506"><br />http://www.penn.museum/sites/biomoleculararchaeology/?page_id=506</a><br /><br />theobromine, best food sources for,<br /><a href="http://foodinfo.us/SourcesUnabridged.aspx?Nutr_No=263"><br />http://foodinfo.us/SourcesUnabridged.aspx?Nutr_No=263</a><br />(Top food source is 2,634 milligrams per 100 grams, .. or 2.6%?) <br />(Elsewhere on the internet it says theobromine is in small amounts in "kola nut (1.0-2.5%), the guarana berry, and the tea plant."<br /><br />theobromine, drugbank webpage for, (gives "mechanisms of action"), <br /><a href="http://www.drugbank.ca/drugs/DB01412">http://www.drugbank.ca/drugs/DB01412</a><br /><br />brain sweat (optional),<br />theobromine 2011 paper (puzzling), http://www.chem.ucsb.edu/~devries/groupsite/pub/24AP-TB%20alt%20base%20pair.pdf<br />theobromine 2011 paper, (The de Vries lab photo. I recognize Goleta Beach in the background there. http://www.chem.ucsb.edu/~devries/groupsite/index.htm )harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-73636430523435376762012-01-12T08:08:00.000-08:002012-01-12T08:15:55.715-08:00Links for Jan 12, 2012 (Thursday AM)------------<br />Jan 12, 2012<br />"Instead of a lot of tweets..."<br /><br />My guess is a lot of articles and chapters were embargoed until January 2012. Finding a lot today through G-scholar. <br /><br />First some older matters, inspired by tweets about econ and evo psych -- <br /><br />Cosmides and Tooby Better than Rational (1994 AER letter), <a href="http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/ppcogsci/bhv/aire/txt/TC.pdf">http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/ppcogsci/bhv/aire/txt/TC.pdf</a><br /><br />Krugman's On Ricardo's Difficult Idea (1996 article), <br /><a href="http://kisi.deu.edu.tr/sedef.akgungor/Microeconomic%20Theory%201%20Fallm2009/Krugman(1996b).pdf">http://kisi.deu.edu.tr/sedef.akgungor/Microeconomic%20Theory%201%20Fallm2009/Krugman(1996b).pdf</a><br /><br />Krugman's On Ricardo's Difficult Idea (1996 article), (.. is also a book chapter at Google Books)<br /><br />The Evolutionary Analysis Of Economic Policy (2004 book, link to Amazon), <a href="http://evolvify.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=14">http://evolvify.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=14</a><br /><br />Duckworth 2011 chapter (et al) personality psych and economics, <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp5500.pdf">http://ftp.iza.org/dp5500.pdf</a><br />(Saved for printing parts-only later (214 pages?))<br /><br />Duckworth 2011 chapter (.. a lot of good review, but also is at nexus of some serious current cogitating of some peer-review circles).<br /><br />From Duckworth, then spinning off toward broader matters than just the economics framework, ... <br /><br />Penke chapter (Very impressive bibliography!), <a href="http://www.larspenke.eu/pdfs/Penke_in_press_-_Bridging_evolutionary_psychology_and_study_of_individual_differences.pdf">http://www.larspenke.eu/pdfs/Penke_in_press_-_Bridging_evolutionary_psychology_and_study_of_individual_differences.pdf</a><br />(Printed.)<br /><br />Penke chapter (comment, Asimov once wrote a fun essay about people reading only the bibliographies and the rest of the papers were shrinking. A la Mark Twain.)<br /><br />Shackelford et al (Liddle) 2011 chapter, Evolution of Violence, <a href="http://www.toddkshackelford.com/downloads/Liddle-Shackelford-Weekes-Shackelford-RGP.pdf">http://www.toddkshackelford.com/downloads/Liddle-Shackelford-Weekes-Shackelford-RGP.pdf</a><br />(Saved for printing later.) <br /><br />Gad's 2011 book on business has parts already up at Google Books. <br /><a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=tZCfTU2ns3gC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=economics+evolutionary+psychology&ots=SW3vXJw3Bf&sig=h8UzhL5pcHrKzP8wn5XKi7kYFGE#v=onepage&q=economics%20evolutionary%20psychology&f=false">http://books.google.com/books</a><br /><br /> -----------------harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-58062461392698696262011-06-30T06:37:00.000-07:002011-06-30T06:58:13.753-07:00General Intelligence Factor Generalizations----------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />Some preliminaries: <br />The following are some musings in response to various recent exchanges, and most recently from an article/blog at Discover Magazine arguing the greater likelihood for a "cybernetic" rather than an AI Singularity. <br /><br />The Discover Magazine article: <br />http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/sciencenotfiction/2011/06/25/towards-a-new-vision-of-the-singularity/<br /><br />This is an expansion on a series of tweets I was about to send. Instead, they're here with some added notes to each. <br /> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />gFactor is one form of academic speak for general intelligence factor, usually in context of factor analysis of human information processing. <br /><br />gFactor 01 Gerd Gigerenzer is reported to have said -- at the risk of oversimplification, general intelligence is lots of rules of thumb, applied flexibly.<br />(Gerd is one of the biggest names in intelligence research. Last I heard he was still at one of the Max Planck Institutes.) <br /><br />gFactor 02 Rules of thumb are evolved out of behavioral ecologies, and species with gene pools shared over many habitats have more. (Corvids, Parrots, Canidae, etcetera.)<br /><br />gFactor 03 Laland (et al) idea of cultural niches influencing human evolution may exponentiate already varied habitat roamings of hominids. (That's Kevin Laland.) <br /><br />gFactor 04 Cognitive flexiblity requires self-criticism as feedback for rule abandonment. Hypothesis-testing as metaphor. Reality-sense unbound. (Generally I avoid the term consciousness. Way too much muddle. But here might involve helping movement toward the development of a useful, operational/testable definition of consciousness.) <br /><br />gFactor 05 Cognitive flexiblity requires opposite of jumping-to-conclusions bias (Google Scholar phrase). Bernard Crespi that. (JTC strong in the delusional disorders. Crespi-Badcock since 1999 writing on autism-schiz as opposite poles of continuum. Most recent methylation data suggestive of autism as overly active general mechanisms of DNA methylation/cell fate certainty, schiz's as under. Story developing.. ) <br /><br />gFactor 06 Cognitive flexiblity difficult to evolve, as jumping-to-conclusions bias as well as niche-specialization of gene pools are in general very powerful selection pressures. (So.. SETI Fail.) <br /><br />gFactor 07 Cybernetic or AI Singularity? My sense at the moment is we still don't know enough to ask the best questions to get feedback to see which rules need to be applied and which need to be abandoned. (My intuition leans toward Cybernetic preceding AI by some years if not decades, and in a very loose sense it already has.)harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113427359946451625.post-37983035342821804152011-06-26T06:24:00.000-07:002011-06-26T06:28:58.685-07:00Shirky PrincipleShirky Principle, lately I find when I start to write out a long series of tweets, ... I blog them instead.<br /><br />Shirky Principle, "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -- Clay Shirky <br /><br />Shirky Principle, Techium post about, 2010 0402, http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2010/04/the_shirky_prin.php<br /><br />Shirky Principle, .. seems a slight modification to the group level of both Shaw, and old Metternich Era saying about diplomacy. <br /><br />Shirky Principle, like? "The purpose of diplomacy is to further the careers of diplomats" (Anon?) (Quoted in Laumer's Retief series.) (Seen various versions at various times in other places, but original seems to go back to Metternich Era minor diplomat reportedly having said it.) <br /><br />Shirky Principle, like? "All Professions are conspiracies against the laity" (GB Shaw character line)<br /><br />Shirky Principle, very-very similar to things Michael E. Lewis has been writing about financial crisis?<br /><br />Shirky Principle, what I don't like about it are the suppositions of an entity and intentionality. ~Can~ lead to sloppy thinking. <br /><br />Shirky Principle, I'd say most conspiracies are manifested through convergences of interests and ideologies, ~not~ so much closed-meetings with explicit deliberations. Usually couched in lots of diplomatese type talk.harpersnoteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10711246471408082849noreply@blogger.com0