Re: Integrity
From: Perplexed in Peoria (jimmenegay_at_sbcglobal.net)
Date: 01/22/05
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Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 13:01:47 -0500 (EST)
"John Edser" <edser@tpg.com.au> wrote in message news:csrihg$1dai$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
[snip]
> Just look at what you wrote above:
> 1) "I offered a theory as to what BOH meant
> by this answer". No theory of "what BOH
> meant" is required. BOH either retracts
> his entirely unambiguous answer
> or he doesn't. He never retracted it
> despite many offers by me to do so.
> Therefore, his answer stands, exactly
> as written. He even requested me to
> provide other quotes of himself which
> confirmed this answer, e.g. BOH confirmed
> that c remains arbitrary. Are you now going
> to argue that some arbitrary things are
> less arbitrary than others?
Of course! You seem to think that something
is either arbitrary or it is not. I think that
something is arbitrary with respect to a context,
and there can be degrees of arbitrariness.
For example, one might say (correctly) that the
sign of c is arbitrary with respect to Hamilton's
rule, meaning that the rule can handle either
positive or negative c's without making any
distinction between the two in the way that the
rule mathematically operates.
That is entirely different from saying (incorrectly)
that an ecologist in the field may arbitrarily
report a measured c as positive or negative. In
this context, only one possibility is permitted,
once the determination is made as to which behavior
pattern is taken as the basis and which is the
pattern that we wish to determine whether it is
more adaptive than the basis pattern.
> 2) .."received confirmation from BOH that
> he did, in fact, mean what I thought he
> meant"
>
> The above sounds like (or was) some
> Mickey Mouse collusion in some back room
> to attempt to retract the non retractable
> in order to placate some mafia boss...
Hmmm. Let me see if I understand your suggested scenario.
I, in Cleveland, and BOH, in Helsinki, got together in
a (presumably electronic) backroom and decided to mislead
Edser (in Melbourne?). We concocted this plot to placate
Boss Joe (The Enforcer) Felsenstein, in Seattle.
John, your paranoia really does verge on the clinical.
(Cleveland is not Peoria, but it is kind-of like Peoria.
Peoria has Caterpillar. Cleveland has an annual wooly
bear festival. I've never been to Peoria. I just like the
name. "Confused in Cleveland" would be less amusing.)
> 3) "..and then stated clearly that I
> agreed with what he intended to say"
>
> This can only mean BOH has admitted he
> had no idea what he was talking
> about in the first place
Or, perhaps, no idea what YOU were talking about.
> until you provided
> him with his own intentions. I didn't know
> (but had suspected) BOH was just a computer ;-)
> Anyway, only a computer is required to provide a
> correct answer anyway because it is entirely
> deductive.
>
>
> 4) "..but felt that he was probably not
> giving a correct answer to the question that you
> were intending to ask."
>
> This is a real corker: It seems JM not only
> knows BOH's intentions better than BOH himself
> does but he also knows my intentions better than
> I do myself!
Exactly the opposite. I don't claim to understand your
intentions. I keep generating hypotheses as to what
your intentions are, but so far, all such hypotheses
have been refuted.
And, in any case, the correct inference would have been
that I know your intentions better than BOH does, not
better than you do.
However, it does appear that one of us claims to
perceive intentions directly across the Pacific Ocean.
Perhaps some antipodal focussing effect is involved.
One example of this is your conspiracy hypothesis
above. Another will follow.
[snip demands that I provide quotes from the original
postings where I (idiotically - I should never have
gotten involved!) offered my hypothesis as to what
BOH intended. Anyone who is interested in the originals
can go to the source.]
> > JM:-
> > I cannot give an answer to the question you intended
> > to ask here, because the question makes no sense to
> > me.
>
> JE:-
> I didn't know Jim could read my mind so that he
> KNOWS the question I INTENDED to ask even before I
> ask it, so that Jim does NOT NOW have to answer
> the question I actually asked. Dear oh dear...
And again, John objects to what he sees as my claim
of the ability to read minds, when actually I am saying
that I can't answer the question because I CAN'T
read minds.
> > JM:-
> > You seem to have some misconception as to what
> > "c" represents. In an effort to find out what you
> > think that "c" represents, I went to a great deal of
> > effort to construct a "thought experiment" in which
> > you, I, and BOH could present our apparently different
> > ideas about what "c" represents, as a step toward
> > understanding each other. You refused to participate
> > unless I would agree in advance to fill out an
> > irrelevant and (to me) unacceptable "form".
>
> JE:-
> It was and reamins perfectly clear what I mean
> by c and what Hamilton must have meant by it.
Not clear to me.
> It has always been perfectly clear. You don't
> like it because it attacks your misconcpetions/bias
> or both so you retend not to understand it.
Hmmm. Who is reading whose mind?
> This is why I filled out a declaration of meaning
> but you refused to do so. I will define c
> YET AGAIN. I challenge you to define it here.
> I predict that you will refuse to do so.
Your prediction fails.
> The value c is the cost of b in fertile
> organism units of fitness.
Ok. Now we are getting down to it. I am willing to
accept fertile organism units as the measuring scheme
for fitness. But you still need to clarify. For
example, I would have written "the cost of the behavior"
but you wrote "the cost of b". This worries me. Are
we understanding the same thing, but just using
different words? Or is there some disagreement lurking
in our choice of different language.
Furthermore, we need to come to agreement as to
whether the cost is to be a cost per behavior (i.e. per act),
or a cumulative cost of all altruistic behaviors (acts)
that the organism performs over its lifetime. I
can live with either assumption, but I want to have
it clear which we are talking about. I would prefer,
though, that it be a cost per behavior, since we
need to multiply by r, which should properly be
understood as referring to a single behavior with
a single donor and a single recipient.
Most importantly, we must come to agreement regarding
the "basis" for calculating c. Every cost must be
given as the difference between one situation and another.
Clearly, we are taking one of the two situations to be
the case where the organism behaves altruistically,
and may also be the recipient of some altruism. What
is the other situation - the basis for the cost calculation?
I would claim that it is a hypothetical situation in
which the organism does not behave altruistically, but
still receives all of the benefits from other organisms'
altruism that it would have received in the original case.
Do you agree with this?
> The value cmax
> is the limit of this cost and represents
> a Darwinian refutable maximand total fitness.
> This can be defined as the total number of
> fertile forms reproduced by each parent into
> one population.
Please clarify. Is cmax the fitness with or without
altruism? With or without the benefits of altruism?
Is there a different cmax for each individual, or is
cmax an average over the population? (Your claim
that it is a "maximand" suggests to me that it is
a population average, but other things you have
written seem to contradict this.) Also, that
"into one population" still strikes me as a little
mysterious. You seem to be suggesting that an organism
has multiple fitnesses - one for each population that
it "reproduces into". I can imagine how this complication
might be useful in analyzing some kinds of "structured
populations", but until I understand how it works, it
can't understand cmax or the meaning you give to c.
> No total fitness even exists
> within Hamilton's Rule because ALL Neo
> Darwinian fitnesses are defined as ongoing.
I'm not sure what "ongoing" means in this context.
But the reason why no total fitnesses appear in the
rule is simple. We subtracted two total fitnesses
(of the donor) to get c and we subtracted two total
fitnesses (of the recipient) to get b. Having
performed this subtraction, there are not total
fitnesses left lieing around. The total fitnesses
have served their function. There is no (fifth)
total fitness available that we can use as cmax.
> This is why the sign of c must remain
> arbitrary within the rule.
And I continue to fail to understand what you are
saying here. Arbitrary in what sense? Arbitrary
simply because the total fitnesses are no longer
needed? The sign of c is completely determined
by the subtraction that yielded c. If the subtraction
yields a negative number, then the sign of c is
negative. How is this "arbitrary"?
> I have provided;
>
> 1) A simple model of total Darwinian fitness.
> 2) A refutable experiment within nature
> that can entirely refute Total Darwinian Fitness.
> 3) A rule that only Total Darwinian Fitness
> can provide that entirely contradicts
> Hamilton's Rule:
>
> ____________________________________________
> Edser's Rule: No total Darwinian fitness
> can be selected to be reduced, no exceptions.
> ____________________________________________
But you haven't said (or perhaps, I just haven't read
where you said) what is meant by the phrase "selected
to be reduced". How would you recognize that your
experiment had shown that fitness was selected to be
reduced and thus provided an (unwelcome and unexpected)
refutation of Darwin?
> I have shown by simple deductive reasoning
> that if all terms within any mathematical
> expression are just variables then that
> expression remains mathematically valid
> but not scientifically valid.
Disagree. And I provided my reasoning.
> I have
> gone to the trouble of defining and
> providing examples of simplified and
> over simplified models arguing what
> can be a valid or just an invalid use
> of them. Nobody else here has done so.
Because nobody else thinks that the distinction
between simplified and oversimplified models
is significant. To be honest, I didn't even
realize that you were making this distinction
until this thread.
> JM's discussion did not even attempt
> to discriminate between model use and
> misuse.
Because I believe that there are countless ways of
misusing models. I don't see any point to focussing
in on one of them and defining it as THE canonical
misuse of a model. My mind doesn't work that way,
though apparently yours does.
> > JM:-
> > I think that charges of evasion are more justified in
> > the other direction. I'll refrain from counter-charging
> > lack of integrity; that would be redundant, because
> > I am accusing you of deliberate and malicious lieing.
> > Again, I ask, Josh, isn't there something that can be
> > done about this?
>
> JE:-
> yes there is: Please just answer the questions
> asked or prove that question was not logically
> valid.
I can't answer the question if the question is not
understood (by ME). Whether YOU understand your questions
is totally irrelevant to whether I understand them.
And I can't prove that a question is not logically
valid unless it is the case that a question can be
unambiguously interpreted in only one way. Not only
does your nonstandard use of language make this
impossible, it happens to be the case that logically
invalid questions cannot be interpreted consistently
in ANY way. Hence, the proof you request cannot be
constructed.
> Stop insulting the intelligence of sbe
> reader's with (thankfully) comical but entirely
> evasive and insulting nonsense.
And I repeat: Your perception of evasion is paranoid.
(Though your perception of insults seems to be normal!)
Your questions fail to find answers because they are
not understood as meaningful questions. Or else,
you fail to understand the answer as meaningful. The
main problem here is a communication problem, but it
is exacerbated by your habit of attributing malice
to our inability to understand you.
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- In reply to: John Edser: "Re: Integrity"
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