September 17, 2004
Background material on why a National Project is required
Link to: Tutorial on the
Nature of a new Memetic Technology
based on categorical
abstraction and event chemistry
Previous discussion with Paul
Werbos à
Indented passages are Paul Werbos comments
(morning of Sept 17th)
Indented and italic is Paul Werbos quoting from Paul Prueitt’s email.
Footnotes are additional remarks by Paul Prueitt
*****
Hi, Paul (P)
Paul (W)
Is the edited revision ok?
http://www.ontologystream.com/beads/nationalDebate/122.htm
Yes, Thanks for checking.
I clicked on it yesterday, and considered adding some further
comments, but decided it was better not to -- in part because of a crisis that
came up, which is momentarily in limbo now.
But also -- in the past, when people asked me questions about
Barbara Yoon [1], she made it
very clear that she prefers to speak for herself.
The topics here are infinitely complex, and there is a tradeoff
between completeness and time.
One small thing, though -- I once heard there were two camps in
mathematics, not exactly warring, but with different worldviews even about what
mathematics is -- a Hilbert camp and a Von Neumann camp. I suppose I was
indoctrinated in something LIKE the Hilbert camp, and you might say I rejected
it at age 16 -- but slid into the Von Neumann camp or the Pythagorean camp. It
isn't so accurate to pin me with Hilbert. (But then again, I have read a lot of
Von Neumann, and not a word of Hilbert.)
[2]
We can delete it, or
fix it up so that it moves us in the direction of our long and principled
discussion about Penrose, Hameroff and Rosen.
I am in favor of attempting to open this into a scholarly discussion,
and perhaps we might invite others who have been involved in this discussion in
the past.
A question: what kind of email discussion would Karl (Pribram)
most want to see and participate in? I
think this question should be taken VERY seriously, at this point [3].
Given new developments, related to the
Conjecture on Stratification, it may be that this discussion can go beyond mere
philosophy. If evidence of stable
substructural ontology can be acquired, we may move what has been a discussion
of theory to one of observation. http://www.ontologystream.com/beads/nationalDebate/104.htm We are early in this process, and have
many issue not as well defined as I would like.
Let me make an off the public record
comment.
Many feel privately that two types of
negative phenomenon effect funding decisions.
The first is a type of groupthink that does not fit the common high
lofty ideals that we, the American public, come to expect from a science
community.
Actually, I have made off-the-record comments that only about 5
percent of our funding gets at all to the "green wood," and that we
could be far more effective "in principle" in our goals of advancing
fundamental understanding and benefiting humanity.
These were informal comments, certainly not precise measurements
-- based on generalizing from a lot of examples of stuff I have seen.
People have asked very seriously: "What would you do about
the SYSTEM to improve this?" I don't see any ONE answer. The sheer
complexity of it all means I have to focus on a relatively small number of
opportunities. I have had a few informal groping discussions with friends in
Brazil directly addressing the spiritual human potential issues, not waiting
for all the AI stuff to reach whatever goals it is chasing this week. I am also deeply embroiled in other areas
where science policy and funding has been hopelessly inefficient, where its
failures immediately threaten the very survival of human organisms in the
relatively short-term.
Where is the problem to this, in the group
think or in the un-realistic imagination of the public?
Psychiatrists have sometimes used the stress-strain analogy. My
gut feeling here is that the same is at work -- we are facing challenges of a
certain level of complexity and subtlety, and we have bounds on our mental
resources due to a combination of factors (some of which are not unlike lack of
toilet training, and immaturity in development of both individual and
collective consciousness/maturity/sanity -- and lack of disciplined development
of the prerequisites or strengths that could help us deal with what we face.)
The second is an understandable self
serving behavior by a significant portion of those who become program managers.
And, yes, I think Toynbee and Spengler have something to say.
I just saw Waley's "translation of the Tao Te Ching" --
which is more like a kind of history of Daoism. Rather interesting. Many of the
problems we face today resonate with the ancient Chinese problem "Oh my
god, what do we do about those Shangs?"
Perhaps if neither of the negative
phenomenon were common, then the evolution of computer science would have taken
a different course, and the structural problems with logic and mathematics
would have been addressed in a more perfect fashion.
Well.. computer science in particular has some problems.. some
related to its reliance on provincial computer science well-off culture, which
has its own eccentricities... yes, there are plenty of Chinese folks in
computer science too, but somehow engineering seems a lot more international to
me, and a tad less prone to fantasyland.
Maybe it goes to an opposite extreme sometimes... but it is interesting
how many human scientific developments are more correlated with cultural
variations than with external realities. Reminds me of Julia (I forget her
Italian name just now, friend of Sam, up in Cambridge.. it would come back if I
kept pressing)... her great study showing how prescribed treatments for
manic-depression were more related to the psychological needs of the doctor
than to those of the patient.
Our opportunity now, in this BCNGroup
proposal for a National Project, is to use the impendence mismatch between what
should be and what is, do justify our attempt at rapid progress in bringing
computational and mathematical sciences into a more principled role as the
"servant of natural science".
That we may do this in the name of mathematics and science is something
that will not be understood unless we are very clear in our purpose. There is a lot that could be done, in
principle, to allow much more of a breakthrough in thinking in the
Do you mean the opportunity in the "intelligent systems"
area or in the "what is mind?" area? I see a vision of what we could
know, but I do not have a similarly integrated political strategy to offer.
In a way, we need to give Barbara Yoon her due, in respect to her
political strategizing. Reminds me of the little red hen and all that. Hmm. Now
what would she say if I compared her efforts to those of Grossberg? [4]
Whatever.
There are crises to get to...
Best,
Paul W.
[1] Dr. Yoon is invited to make comments. However, in the past we and others have found that she uses her
authority as a long term DARPA program manager as a shield and will not engage
in open scholarly discussion.
[2] This comment is very
interesting and insightful to me, both about “Paul Werbos” my friend and about
the history and nature of mathematics.
My sense has been that in spite of the imminence that society has given
to you Paul (W) that I have a deeper and more historically complete
understanding of the foundations of mathematics. So the point of public disagreement over the category theory of
Robert Rosen ( Chapter 2)
and the relevance of Penrose and Hameroff’s work can be understood based on the
different intellectual backgrounds. I would
say that the paragraph should identify a third camp, that which has a history
the identities Brower’s intuitivist viewpoint, and would place the Soviet work
in applied semiotics into this history.
I should refer also to Lev
Goldfarb’s viewpoints about the “numeric” model as being not the only
possible “induction” via Peano axioms.
[3] Paul Werbos and I have been
engaged within a community that has explored a quantum mechanical basis to
human perception and cognition. Central
to this community discussion is the work of neuroscientist Karl Pribram (now at
Georgetown University).
[4] I personally do not know of
any positive contribution that Yoon has made in spite of her effective
financial control of a large part of the government funding. On the other hand, Stephen Grossberg’s
contributions are simply too great to enumerate. What point are you making about Dr. Yoon’s contributions? Why would we expect anything other than
arrogance and secrecy? I have only
visited with her briefly (in 1992) and have found her demure one not only of
exceeding intellectual elitism but also one that hides behind the secrecy of
her office. But I may be completely
wrong about my personal observations over the past decade and a half.