Re: e$: Snakes of Medusa on Wall Street? (fwd)

[Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>]

At 11:09 pm -0500 on 11/18/97, Jim Choate wrote:


> Fortunately I can lay claim to being either the last of the baby boomers
> or the first of the gen-x'ers depending on whose definition you use.

We're probably close to the same age. I graduated from high school in 1977.

> Personaly, I consider the labels spin-doctorisms intended to focus folks on
> the differences instead of the similarities.

I love pigeonholes and labels. :-). Most of them are right, and you can
alway change them if they don't work. Paradoxically, I do agree that
shoving people into meaningless pigeonholes is, of course, stupid. Race is
one, but, for some reason, age cohort isn't, for me. Go figure.


> Opinions are tied to individuality
> and not geography or chronological ordering. What you actualy have is a
> group of individual opinions that once the observer is aware of the set then
> forms their own opinion of what the original opinions meant.

Again, I'm just plugging things into categories here because it helps me
think about them better. I think opinions may, like memes, originate in the
heads of individuals, but they get passed around.

> The point that always seemed clear to me is that there is an implicit
> assumption with the whole mind/body question, in short; there is more to
> reality than what we experience. Therefore our experience of reality is
> fundamentaly different than reality. A further problem I see is that the
> implied assumption that the observer is seperate and isolated from that
> being observed.

Gotta remember that the Mind/Body problem originated two millenia ago.
Again, I think a combination of ideas starting with Bacon and ending in
neuroscience, killed it off rather nicely. I'm willing to be disabused by
someone who's actually studied the problem lately, though.

> You are using a fundamentaly different science than I use. At no time does
> science assume there is a truth, only interactions that can be manipulated
> and are simple enough in their core interactions for us to understand.

Okay. However, there is a *direction* of inquiry, the thing which drives
science, which, I say at it's heart, is a quest for truth. To know how
things work, if you want to put it that way without using the "T" word. :-).

> Science is nothing more than a methodology for asking questions that fit
> particular and well defined forms.

I.E. That they're replicable? I'm not sure that's different from what I said...

> Please be so kind why heuristics is the only thing we got? Seems to me that
> serendipity has raised its head more than once. As I understand heuristic
> algorithms (ie rule base) is that they pre-suppose a system for goal meeting
> and then go through a itterative process comparing the current position with
> the goal and then reducing that distance.

I think your definition is more refined than mine. I'm saying that
heurisics are rules of thumb. Stupid brain tricks, if you will. Opinions,
and the manipulation of opinion are bound up with those rules of thumb.

> Ah, but there is a rub here. Respect is an opinion.

Recursion is fun stuff, isn't it? :-). Sure. Respect is also related to
influence somehow.


> If you don't know how to ask a question in a scientific manner you can't
> test it. Science itself doesn't say anything about the results directly
> other than they are homogenous and isomorphic, the observer does however when
> we examine the goals and reasons for the experiment in the first place.

I think this is my point. The Null Hypothesis versus H1, and all that. You
have to have an opinion about what's there before you try to test it, and,
of course, decision rules to validate that test.

> To
> observe nature requires a fundamentaly different methodolgy than 'commen
> sense' observation.

This is where my use of the word heuristics, said in anger :-), gets me
into trouble. Heuristics means "common sense" to most people. Rules of
thumb works, but it has a slightly different meaning...

> Further, the realization that there are processes in
> nature that are fundamentaly un-repeatable is what forced the creation of
> statistics and the study of families of events.

Yes. Okay. Repeatability I can also equate with observability, particularly
if other people can get the same data in their observations. :-).

> No, that is business management. At no point in an engineering study is the
> issue of cost v price examined. Study Nikola Tesla to understand why your
> statement is fallacious.

I stand corrected. I'm reminded of the various breakeven points in fusion,
i.e., scientific, engineering, and, finally, economic. :-).


> a simpler way to put it
> is that intellectual capital should not be avaluated by the same methodology
> we use to select books or movies to buy.

Good point. I understand what you're saying here, and I'll think about this
some more.

Certainly, science helps us with the fact base, and even the theoretical
base, of determining what's bulshit or not. However, when it comes to
things as nebulous as influence, and, as a result, reputation, things can
get subjective quite quickly. Resources, like you said, have to do with it.
"I'll take Jim's word for it" makes for a useful decision rule, a lot of
the time, whether we admit it or not.

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
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