ideas, engineering, and science

Interesting discussion in the Postgraduate Forum here
yesterday about research work combining ideas (both
new and historical) and engineering work (basically,
implementing ideas). Marion, who runs the PG forum,
suggested that science forms another distinct branch of
things to do. I liked that.

What's interesting to me is how these three things might
fit into one coherent frame. Seems quite philosophical
and a bit hard to articulate. But to be colloquial: ideas
suggest how things might fit together, science confirms
or denies (mostly denies) any particular idea, and
engineering actually creates something that fits together
the way the idea indicates.

The thing is, I wouldn't see these things as stacked on
top of one another, but rather, as intermixed. For example,
ideas can come from the way it feels to interact with some
"engineered system" (or anything else; usually "interactions"
include non-engineered components, like people).

We tend to get "credit" for any one of these things -- but
to make a really good dissertation, it's good to have
appropriate coverage of related things (any thesis could
talk about related ideas, related engineering projects, or
related experiments). What I was wondering about was
how we could tell just what sort of contextualization was
"appropriate".

upholstery buttons

I noticed when reading Zizek's "For they know not what they do"
that my "double theorization"
(http://gathatoulie.blogspot.com/2010/04/if-youve-seen-one-cute-girl-youve-seen.html)
has already been traced by Hegel, Marx, and Lacan.

The easiest way to understand it is in terms of a
so-called "topsy-turvy world" -- Zizek's most memorable
example is:

* Heaven is a place of peace, the
inversion of the suffering in our world;

* Nevertheless, God, King of Heaven, is
to be feared over and above any earthly
fear;

* Those who fear God ultimately needn't worry
about earthly concerns -- and suffering goes away!

In short, any time an "ideal" appears on
the horizon, we can expect to get some
sort of blowback through a similar "double
inversion", "double negation", "double narration",
or "double theorization".  Let's give it a try :)

Here's my example, reworked:

Step one: Theorizing people, we invent
"social systems of resource allocation and
social control".

Step two: Theorizing "social systems of
resource allocation and social control",
we invent "History".

Blowback: Human actions which would
otherwise be basically "meaningless" or
else "overdetermined" now become
"inherently meaningful" because they've
been mapped into the tableau of history.

In short, the thing we experienced initially
as a "lack" (humans need to be explained)
now becomes a "source" (humans generate
history).

Lacan's image is that of an upolstery
button holding things together.  I think
there could be a more dynamic image,
like a line extending to enclose a region:
only once it *goes out* and *comes
back to the beginning* does it enclose
anything.

Joe

PS. Ray saw an earlier version of this note
and in respect of that last image, recommended
http://www.hegel.net/en/v0methode-dreieck.htm

"if you've seen one cute girl you've seen them all?"

In the spirit of that mildly perplexing comment, here's an
interesting panalogy.

(Note, I believe that's Hofstadter or Minsky's term for an
analogy or parallel between analogies; I will denote the panalogy
relation by ::~). This is from my dad -- and it was a bit
off the cuff, so I'll do some editing as I go along to develop
this idea further (thanks dad ;):

atoms:people::people:galaxies
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher:social systems
of resource allocation and social control (means of production and
relations of production)

One of the reasons it is "spurious" is that while people stand in the
relationship to atoms of "are larger than", more characteristically
the relationship is "are comprised of" -- whereas galaxies are not
comprised of people! (Although social systems are.) So let's correct
the first analogy a little bit:

atoms:people::people:social systems of resource allocation and social
control (means of production and relations of production)
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher: ?

But, uh oh, now that we've moved that final term across the "::~",
what should the "?" at the end be?

I think we should be clear that in the second analogy, a
"researcher" is some type of /scientific mind/ -- so the best
thing I can think to put there is /scientific discourse/ or
/scientific bodies of knowledge/ -- i.e., the "emerged"
system that is what the minds fit into. Maybe we would just
say this:

atoms:people::people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher:theories of
systems of resource allocation and social control

In other words, in this panalogy, "::~" plays the role of a sort of "theorizing"
or "virtualizing" relation. While people tend to agree that there really are
atoms, I think the same people would agree that a "piece of scientific
knowledge" is a virtual thing. (Actually, thanks to quantum mechanics,
the two types of objects may be fairly similar: both of them are a sort of
density that condenses into certain embodiments, on average, but which
may in general be widely dispersed; e.g. ask 100 people what a derivative
represents and you won't get 100 different answers, but you may still
get more than just one answer.)

The curious thing for me with this adjusted panalogy is that it posits
/scientific discourse/ as a prototypically "social science and economics"
kind of thing. Well, it's true that my dad is an economist -- but maybe
there's something more going on than just a matter of personal preference.

I think it's fundamentally quite hard to /think/ of anything that doesn't have
to do with "allocations of resources" (distributions of particles in space
and time) and "control systems" (cybernetics, whether 'social' in nature
or not).

It is now tempting to apply the "::~" relation one more time to generate
a structure like:

atoms:people::people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher:theories of
systems of resource allocation and social control
::~
metaphysical/mystical knowledge:philosophers/mystics ::
philosophers/mystics:theories of theories of systems of
resource allocation and social control

although one the problem with doing this is that we've now invited
ourselves to generate a huge tower of "::~" analogies, but we're
already very quickly running out of words and ideas to put into
them. So we might like to see some sort of closure or convergence
apply. Luckily, I think I have an idea for that:

atoms:people::people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher:theories of
systems of resource allocation and
social control
::~
people:?::?:theories of theories of systems of resource allocation and
social control

In other words, "metaphysical/mystical knowledge" is just the experience
of being human! We're now left wondering, what is that thing that is
comprised of humanness? But we found that before --

atoms:people::people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::~
detailed scientific knowledge:researchers::researcher:theories of
systems of resource allocation and
social control
::~
people:social systems of resource allocation and social
control::social systems of resource allocation and social
control:theories of theories of systems of resource allocation and
social control

This leaves us with one extended analogy in place of the panalogy:

atoms:people
::
people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::
social systems of resource allocation and social control:theories of
theories of systems of resource allocation and social control

Remember, ":" here basically says "are comprised of" (read right
to left). So how is it that the DOUBLE THEORIZATION of social
systems are comprised of the social systems themselves?!?

It's tempting to just replace this final confusing term with a more
natural term like "history". (And the Marxist insinuations
that we got started with, albeit parenthetically, might be
satisfied by that approach.) But let's not, in that case, forget
where this thing came from.

atoms:people
::
people:social systems of resource allocation and social control
::
social systems of resource allocation and social control:history

Notice that we've moved from a spatio-temporal relationship
(atoms configure themselves into things called people that
then subsist in time) to a more temporo-spatial relationship
(social systems of resource allocation and social control have
dynamics which play out and rearrange themselves in space, i.e.
by a mapping into "the historical record").

In other words, "theorization" is basically a mapping into
another (set of) dimension(s), and whereas "comprising" is
also (only?) conceivable as a sort of /mapping by extension
and systematization/ within any given (set of) dimension(s).

Because we don't have so many dimensions to work with,
nor so many ideas (e.g. atoms, extension, systematization;
concept, parallel, analogy), the map is not the territory, but
the map of the /mapping process/ is on the original map.
(Or whatever other Borgesian thing best describes the idea!)

Well, I don't think I've quite exhausted these themes, but
maybe I've spent enough time on them for the moment.

subject recruitment policies on wikipedia

«The Wikipedia:Research policy on subject recruitment on Wikipedia has
made its way through RFC and is now accepted as a policy on English
Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research»

This just goes to show how complicated things can get.

realistic models

«If the track is long and the hill is rough, thinking you can just
ain't enough.» -- Shel Silverstein, "Where the Sidewalk Ends", page
158

Cited in (OK, this is pretty nerdy) --

"Motivational Role of Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Self-Regulated Learning"
by Frank Pajares, in "Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning: Theory,
Research, and Applications" by Dale H. Schunk and Barry J.
Zimmerman, eds. (Taylor and Francis Group, 2008).

Well, that's a mouthful, but let's not let it stand in the way
of the main point. Frank Pajares says at the outset of the
chapter:

«Psychologist Albert Bandura theorized that the beliefs
that people come to hold about their capabilities and about the
outcomes of their efforts powerfully influence not only the ways
in which they will behave but also the cognitive and affective
processes that accompany their functioning. For Bandura,
as for the poet Virgil, people who are 'able' are typically those
who *believe* they are able.»

To sum up further -- it's not just *thinking* you can
that's important, but *believing* you can. Make it
a "justified, true belief" and you'll *know* you can,
yeah?!

Now, what kind of maps or models are *realistic*
(i.e. "justified and true)? Pajares suggests
"coping models", which say that

«missteps are inevitable, they can be overcome,
and even authority figures make them»

as opposed to the so-called "mastery models"
held by

«those who have their authority and ego tied up
into their infallibility»

Building up to the idea that --

«Effective models convey not only the success
experience itself but also the information
required to succeed.»

Now that we know something about these
maps, we should take a good look at their
dynamic aspects. Parajes suggests that --

«Making students aware of the self-handicapping
strategies they regularly use to decrease anxiety
is a critical first step in teaching them how to
circumvent such strategies.»

A first step is not enough, but it's an interesting
(and sensible) beginning. (Question for reflection:
What are the next steps?)

objections to a philosopher

«In truth, only one kind of objection is worthwhile:
the objection which shows that the question raised by
a philosopher is not a good question, that it does
not force the nature of things enough, that it should
be raised in another way, that we should raise it in
a better way, or that we should raise a different
question.» --Deleuze, "Empiricism and Subjectivity", p. 107

concerning the direction of arrows

In the article

Nishida's Philosophy of `Place',
International Philosophical Quarterly,
28(4), 1988, pp. 355-371,

the author, Masao Abe, talks about the difference between

dog -is a-> mammal

and

mammal -particularizes to-> dog.

In the first way of thinking, we end up with

Ralph -is a-> dog -is a-> mammal -is a-> ... ->thing,

and Ralph is the "subject that cannot be a predicate".
("Are you a Ralph?" is so 'Pixar'...)

On the other hand, considering the chain

the universe -particularizes to-> ...-> dog -particularizes to-> Ralph,

we end up considering "a predicate that cannot be subject" -- what
Nishida and Abe choose to call ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS, since
they deem that phrase to be adequate to describe the 'something'
about which nothing sensible can ever really be said, i.e., the 'thing'
that is never a grammatical subject.  (Henceforth abbreviated to
"Mu".)

But, by Saint Sebastian! -- isn't that 'thing' the "Body without
Organs" from Deleuze et al.?

Or, shall we go back further, to

Empiricism and Subjectivity: An essay on Hume's theory of human nature
Gilles Deleuze, 1953
trans. Constantin V. Boundas, 1991, Columbia Univ. Press

wherein Deleuze remarks: "The mind and the given are not derived
from such-and-such an idea but rather from the smallest idea, whether
it is used to represent the grain of sand or a fraction of it.  This is
why, finally, the problem of the status of the mind is the same as
the problem of space.  On the one hand, we ask whether or not
extension is infinitely divisible.  On the other hand, the indivisible
ideas, to the extent that they are indivisible, constitute in a certain
way extension."

And just how does that work?  He quotes Hume: "Five notes play'd
on a flute give us the impression and idea of time; tho' time be not
a sixth impression, which presents itself to the hearing or any other
of the senses."

These indivisible things can be brought into all sorts of relations
with each other, but still, their indivisible nature brings them
quite close to "Mu".  Still, they're not "Mu" -- maybe they're
"U"! (from Joshu's "alternate answer" to 'does a dog have
Buddha nature?' -- "U" means /being/ or /having/).  The smallest
ideas are the most elementary grammatical subjects.

This this matter of the 'direction of the arrows' reminded
me of another thing: Bayesian networks, in which, e.g.
a->b is essentially the same as a<-b (given P(a) and P(b),
P(a|b) and P(b|a) are informationally equivalent).  This, in short,
means that the direction of arrows in Bayesian networks doesn't
actually represent "causality", just "relatedness".

But I don't want to give you the impression that the direction
of arrows is somehow a completely arbitrary choice.

Abe makes a convincing case that the -is a-> arrows put us
in the mindset of an 'objective observer'.  Essentially a third
party to the discourse -- but without a solid understanding of
our own constitution.  On the other hand the -particularizes to->
arrows lead us directly to consider an evolving space, and
directly causes us to confront ourselves and our real constitution
as a part of this space.

Further, I think Hume and Nishida can easily be related, e.g.
insofar as 'clarifying one real Dharma' ("U", the first subjects)
is the same as 'attaining emptiness' ("Mu", the predicate
that is never a subject).

Finally, in light of the Hume-Nishida understanding of 'space',
I think I understand William S. Burroughs's famous statement
"I write for the space age" in a new light. His books are like
huge evolving networks, minds (i.e., spaces, places, or maps),
created not /in silica/, but (the translation itself is interesting) --
/in charta/.