Epistomology 1

...back in the day when I was in skool, course #1 was the introductory event, now the usual nomenclature is Basket Welding 101, but I'm stuck in the past...anyway...being shut in with a cold and 8" of snow outside for the last few days my mind gets to wandering, I've been meaning to try to get this down for a while so here goes...

I am, from what I glean in the literature, a Pragmatic Instrumentalist with a strictly Mechanist -- causal -- bent.  This means that I only believe things when I see them and can construct some reasonably clear step-by-step explanation for why they are that way.

As an Instrumentalist I believe that we make Hidden Markov Models of reality. Observations are used to develop models that make efficient predictions. But these models may have no deep relationship to that reality.

I know there are difficulties with Causality. So I also make it an article of faith that every Effect has a Cause. However, this does not mean that I believe that every Effect is predictable. Huge numbers of variables, sensitive dependence on conditions, and Heisenberg make that impossible. None the less, statistical and quantum mechanics make pretty good predictions about the distribution of classical and quantum level behaviors. Most pool balls aimed at a pocket go in. Unless I'm the player.

I also know there are difficulties with Objective Observation. Thus I'm willing to posit that a whole buncha folks should observe and explain things in a reasonably similar fashion before I really believe myself. This means that I depend on a fairly stable external 'reality' peopled by others like me. That's a tough row to prove, so lets make it another article of faith.

There are two places this gets dicey.

The first is mass delusion. The second is stuff I can't see ...and maybe third, various combinations of the two... For the latter I have to put my trust in other people who seem to have a grasp of the issue to provide second hand observation and explanation. In triplicate if possible.

For the former we have Engineering.

If someone can build a bridge or skyscraper that survives multiple earthquakes, I tend to believe that they know something about how the world works. When the explanations for these lunar-landers and cell-phones are all stacked together and appear logically congruent then the body of knowledge they are based on is good enough for me. This is the Pragmatic part. As the logo on this blog says: Quomodo Efficat -- Whatever Works.

So.

A set of similar independent Observations equals Evidence. Some Evidence with a plausible Explanation equals an Hypothesis. A large body of replicable Hypotheses equals a Scientific Fact. And a set of Scientific Facts that makes things work equals Truth. Or the best I can get in this life.

I should note here that this is not the way Science actually behaves on the day-to-day scale, there's more social construction at work. But on the aggregate, stuff tends to even out. If this weren't the case we'd have Mach's law instead of Boltzmann's equations.

Then, thanks to Popper, this all has to be couched in a language that makes predictions which can be tested and refuted. "God does (not) exist" is not a good scientific hypothesis. Further, science cannot even address the super-natural because it is just that: not of nature. Once the super-natural impinges on the natural, then we've got a case. I've just never seen it happen.

Of course, there are a huge quantity of observations that don't fit together in this system. Things which are not immediately repeatable, or for which we don't know the replication conditions, or happen so infrequently that we can't repeat them. When these observations can be explained by existing theory we can lump them into what we already know. The recent sighting of the "Bert and Ernie" neutrinos at Antarctica's Ice Cube facility, or the probable Higgs Boson(s), might be good examples.

When they so aren't explicable there's trouble...

Just because someone (believes she) saw something isn't strong enough Evidence to begin developing explanatory hypotheses. First it is impossible to distinguish believes he saw from actually saw.  Then add observational biases, sensory and memory quirks, and just plain errors in the instruments being used and it adds up to Insufficient Evidence.

But... Because someone (believes she) saw something inexplicable is the place every new theory starts. It's the beginning of a Metric S-Ton of work to be done. Unfortunately there are usually many lower-hanging fruits to be selected, so a lot of observations get lost in the skuffle. This is not a good reason to deny their existence, and in fact there is no basis to deny anything until all due-diligence attempts at replication have been exhausted. But it's the way of the (Enlightened) world.

Good examples of the inexplicable might be, witch-doctory, acupuncture, and/or the placebo effect. (To my knowledge I have never experienced any of these working. Usually drugs and techniques that work for other people stop working on me after a couple tries, so I'm even more skeptical than I should be.) Placebos are well documented to the point that they must be accounted for in medical studies. The best explanation I've seen so far is from a natural healer who said, "It just proves how strong an influence the mind has over the body." This is probably both factually and poetically true, but it provides no mechanism nor way to replicate the effect. So we stumble along asserting, often incorrectly it seems from some recent statistical meta-studies, that such-and-such-a-drug(-that-my-company-supplies) is XX% better than a placebo for YY condition.

Or spontaneous cancer remission. It happens. No one knows why. Maybe you had a fever? Your immune system finally kicked in? Hormones? Prayer?  No way to even create a body of evidence because it's so rare. Cracking that nut would be worth a few Nobel Prizes. However, as I said, there are many lower-hanging prizes with higher chances of success.

So it's a Miracle.

Score!

Was looking for an animal themed gifting experience and found this. I wonder if she'll appear on every page I visit now? (I'll miss bikini girl though)...

?!!!!?

Local Color XVI -- Domestic

(...not strictly Santa Fe, but close enough...)  

 Cops: Man hit wife with toilet tank lid

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - An Albuquerque man is accused of attacking his estranged wife with a toilet tank lid. Police say Arthur Ruiz got into an argument with his wife Wednesday morning when she came to pick up their young kids ages 2, 6 and 8. According to the victim, Ruiz had a party the night before and they were fighting about it. Ruiz then allegedly tossed her phone in the toilet and grabbed the tank lid and hit her, cutting the back of her head. The kids were not hurt.Police also found out Ruiz had teenagers drinking at his party. He was arrested for that, aggravated battery and child abuse.

Drive This Google

this morning's, ok ok, early afternoon's, view from the top of my driveway

I now command my Google Driverless Car to take me to town for lunch...

On the other hand it took just one adventurous adClick to get this image to appear on every web page I visit, so life is not all bad:

http://www.revolveclothing.com/DisplayProduct.jsp?product=WARE-WX20&utm_campaign=Tellapart&cvosrc=Retargeting.Tellapart&utm_medium=retargeting&utm_source=display&source=Tellapart

Etantdonnes WhateveR™ Manages My Day

Posts are coming hard and fast here...I'm sure it won't last...But...

I recently saw mention of Google Now being the latest must have app. It purports to coalesce all the needs of the busy new economy executive into one convenient package on your device. It's probably a godsend for your typical globe-trotting urban Google Employee™, so I started imagining how it might help me get through a typical day. I couldn't sleep until I got this all down on magnetic bits:


At 7 AM WhateveR™ wakes me to announce that American Airlines flight 2798 is boarding at the Santa Fe Airport. Maybe I can get a glimpse of it taking off...Nope...missed it again...

If I had needed a boarding pass for that flight it wouldn't have been printed because my old printer is attached to a Windows 2000 desktop that doesn't support the Media Transport (With Added DRM!) Protocol. No matter, at 7:38 AM WhateveR™ pings my cell phone with an apology for the failure and offers to print a voucher for the Google Chrome Operating System that won't run on the computer in question because it has less than 1Gb of RAM. It also prints, on the printer at my Fire Station, a coupon for a new printer.

After I get up I check the weather. It is 65˚ and balmy in Sunnyvale, CA. After finding the Change My Location button hidden under the Follow the San Jose Giants ad, I get the options of New York, London, Dubai, Shanghai, and Other. Clicking on Other and navigating the droop-down-menus I find last night's weather for Santa Fe, NM. With a little more poking around I get it to update and admit that it is indeed mostly sunny outside. I change to degrees C with the simple click of the button next to the temperature display.

My friend Ken's birthday is next month. Mine was last week. WhateveR™ hopes I had an

!Awesome Time!

After breakfast WhateveR™ notifies me that there's some traffic on Old Las Vegas Highway and encourages me to drive on out there and have a look. Included is a helpful map:

I check the weather again and find that it is 28˚ F with light snow in El Dorado, KS.

Later I am notified that, in ten minutes, I could be having lunch with the Fire Department in town. A map of Santa Fe Springs, CA is provided. In current traffic it should take 12 hours and 26 minutes to get there. And BTW, while I'm at the Fire Station I should check to see if the guy who was supposed to order new printer toner ever did it and if that little popup window is still popping up up every few seconds? And here's a coupon for toner for my old printer. Click to <CANCEL>. Then enter <QUANTITY>. Would you like to review your purchase? <CONTINUE>.

The appointed time to walk out to the mailbox comes around.

No packages are going to arrive today. One came yesterday but the driver left it in the middle of the driveway and the meter reader ran over it. WhateveR™ is sorry that it only just remembered that.

The walk counts for a good bit of exercise on my monthly cumulative, but the activity total does not include moving my tenant's bicycle out of the way so I can disassemble a portion of the garage storage system in order to verify that I really can't find that part for the kitchen sink that I thought that I still had after WhateveR™ discovered the scanned receipt in myGoogle Documents.

The markets closed mixed. Would you like to login/create a myGoogle Finance account? <CONTINUE>

WhateveR™ reminds me that I could go to dinner at one of four restaurants within 5 miles of Old Las Vegas Highway and that I (still) have no mass transit options for getting there. It does however provide another map:

One of the four offerings (B) closes at 3pm but I cannot convince WhateveR™ of that fact. Nor can I cause it to ignore another of the selections (D) which appears to be a private catering business. So they both show up as options every day around this time.

A fifth possibility is fielded: a Hotel with a four star restaurant in Las Vegas, NV. In current traffic it should only take 9 hours and 14 minutes to get there. Would I like to Change My Location? <YES> <NO> <MORE>

I am then reminded about that Art Opening for which I got an announcement last week. It was yesterday. Also, my latest New Yorker issue is stuck in a Post Office delivery eddy between Kansas City and Albuquerque for which I might have collected ten frequent flier miles on the credit card that I cancelled last year. And, did I receive my weekly sales flier from Bed Bath and Beyond:  <YES> <NO> <MORE>?

After dinner WhateveR™ notices that I have yet to leave the house and offers to broker a car rental for me.

First World Re-Gifting

Been a long time here...lots going on...in my mind...mostly of no interest to the world at large...but...the holiday spirit has taken hold...so...

Amongst the soon-to-be-excruciating deluge of snailmail crap, I recently received a giftalog from worldvisiongifts.org which offered me the chance to send a cute furry bunny rabbit to some un-specified-but-probably-third-world-personage(s) for only $19 (plus, undoubtedly, tax and license) :

Since I am still in the process of recovery from the March loss of my rabbit-companion, Bonbon lil'Bubba Badbunny, I am somewhat sensitive to their presentation in the world.

Now.

I'm sure this charity means well. Based on vetting by various online adjudicators they even seem to be doing pretty well  -- OkOk, 53 out of 70 and 3*s is the lowest in their "highly-rated" category on Charity Navigator, but they are after all a "Christian humanitarian organization", and I guess Jimmy Carter would approve, so it can't be all bad.

But...

In the accompanying text is the statement, "Not only is this a way to feed hungry children..." which sorta-kinda sidesteps the actual-fact-of-the-matter that little Kenyatta's gleeful smile here is not the result of having found a life-long companion, but more likely because he/she is looking forward to a nice stew and a pair of furry moccasins.

And pretty much the same, maybe minus the moccasins, goes for happy Maria's piglet too:

This catalog offers me so many ways to share the wealth of sheep, goats, chickens, and partridges in pear trees while never once admitting that most of those pear trees are destined for the killing floors within months if not days of receipt. This is of course the way of the world, and feeding children is a more noble cause then coyotes, but...can't we just face the gdm facts once in a while? Do I really need to abuse the concept of cute mammal companionship to convince little Sally to forgo her next GTA-FuckBall upgrade so some distant, theoretical, Kenyatta can have one decent meal? And some nice shoes?

Maybe that's the only way it will work...

... finally ...

!!Bed and Beyond Barf Honors Duchamp!!

For the 100th anniversary of his ground-breaking new-media work the latest catalog offers:

I'm not sure exactly what one should buy three of in order to create exactly which look but I have to give them props not due to NYMoMA for the recognition. I couldn't find this Special Look at their online presence, but at least they have other Bicycle Wheel art for the massahs: