Re: Things Formulaic

Al wrote: 
"Mark Fergerson" <nunya@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8zOge.30564$fI.26567@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Al wrote:

<I'll reply to the below because you don't seem to know how to
direct and format replies appropriately to newsgroups; it'll come
eventually. I'll even show you how it might look>

There seems to be a misunderstanding. I do not think that maths is bad;
maths is neutral, its the use to which it's put that is bad. There is
nothing wrong with science per se, its the ham fisted way it is used.


<The single indent means you wrote the immediately above text>

  "Ham-fisted" usually indicates a lack of consideration of some
factor(s). Which factor(s) did you have in mind?

When I speak of dehumanisation I mean the quantifying of us.

See below 

<What newsreader are you using? It doesn't do indents for crap>

  Look, whether you like it or not, people have characteristics
which are quantizable (not that it's been done to the last decimal
place yet) and thus subject to _statistical_ modelling.


Psychology has decided to lick the ass/arse of science and reduced us
all to statistical nonentities.( This includes you also) The reason for this is
because science has pointed the finger and accused psychology of having
a murky past. This is only true in a scientific sense.

Yep, and what other "sense" is worth considering? 

 It's like speaking to someone under hypnosis. All you can hear is the
 hypnotists voice, with a vague notion of something else going on.
 He says dance and you dance, although you don't know why.

There's that hostility again; now you need to be insulting? You can do better than that.

  Or, you could try directly answering my question.

While you're at it, ask yourself which hypnotist's tune _you're_ dancing to.

"Mathematics is used to quantize the elements of problems in order
to make predictions about previously-unseen combinations of those
elements;


<The double indent means I wrote the immediately above text; your
newsreader program may display things a bit differently>

"Making 'predictions'" is the operative word Mark. 

  Yep, it sure is. Previous versions of psychology have failed
utterly precisely because they used "murky" methodologies. Do you
have a problem with your behaviors being made predictable?

Yes

Ah. Well, that's a different issue, and one on which we actually have common ground. I however, am not in denial about it.

Do you actually believe that "predictable" in this case means "inhuman"?

Yes mass control is what it is all about.

This is ancient news. Have you never noticed that governments used to be underpinned by a Church of one stripe or another? That was because the rules for obtaining "mass control" were empirically worked out by those that started the first Churches and have been under continuous refinement ever since.

It doesn't, you know. Psychology will simply never be able to reduce 
_individual_ human behavior to the same level of predictability
Physics has for individual fundamental particles for reasons that
ought to be blatantly obvious to you; that people's minds have many,
many more "quantum states" available to them than do say hadrons,
and can transition between them without warning not to mention
existing in two or more of them simultaneously. Nor is the word
"stable" applicable to humans except in the context of a given
sociopolitical venue.

People don't have quantum states, they have thoughts, ideas, creativity

Irrelevant. Notice that I said "statistical modeling" above. Those seeking mass control are interested in the behaviors of the _mass_, not the individuals comprising the mass, but it's necessary to treat "typical" individual behaviors as quantizable in order to get a statistically-valid prediction. (This is not a paradox, either. Nails that stick up can always be pounded down.)

Have you considered the concept of camouflage? I cut my hair many years ago for comfort (I moved to AZ) and discovered to my utter surprise that most people suddenly treated me like a square (terminology ought to indicate my age) without any clue what was going on beneath the shortened hair even given the counterevidence of my unchanged behaviors. They were (and still are) conditioned to directly correlate external visual cues to social standing, political affiliation, etc. They simply cannot accept a short-haired anarchist weirdo no matter what I say, so they either retranslate what I say to what they can handle, or blank it out completely.

IOW don't look like an un-pounded-in nail. This is _not_ dishonesty, this is survival.

  However, it's fairly easy to observe which state(s) is/are
predominant in a given population sample at a given time and tailor
inputs to get a given response; ask any rabble-rousing politician.

  See, I predicted (but didn't mention) that you'd have the precise
reaction you've exhibited because you're actually a wannabe Mystic
who thinks that there's some ineffable aspect to humans that
separates them from "Physical reality". That mindset comes from a
very shallow understanding of what "Physical reality" means.

What is reality? I'd be very interested to know.

It is that within which we are immersed, and is infinitely surprising.

"You seem to
have a serious bug up your ass about "higher
mathematics" being a tool used to exclude those who don't understand
any of it from being taken seriously when discussing subjects where
it's applicable".

Absolutely. It's used to pull the wool over the eyes. 

  Horse***. Learn the math used, and then challenge the
discussions. You consistently use hostile terminology when talking
about math; did you run up against some personal ability to absorb
it? Get over it; I got stuck at Beginning Calculus, but have managed
to slowly slog my way deep enough into it to be able to
differentiate (pardon the pun) between real results and handwaving
bull***.


    When you have stood in front of a class of seventeen/eighteen-year-olds
you don't flinch at insults. Wasting your time.

Not an insult. If you suspect somebody's trying to baffle you with bull***, use their own tools to try to prove it. OTOH, if you find they aren't, then you may have to accept their conclusions. But you won't know for sure until you make the effort to become proficient with their tools. What you dare not do is go into and remain in denial; their tools may be fearfully effective, and you'd better find out and familiarize yourself with them in order to know how to circumvent them if that's what you want to do.

  If you "study war no more", you're volunteering for slavery.

I'm talking about the consequences of telling lies to the public and
bull*** maths when the poor 'masses' hang on every word that science
utters.


  How about the purely emotion-based lies told daily by
politicians, aimed specifically at those on the low end of the bell
curve? Are those OK with you?

The subject is scientists

You miss my point; politicians and priests are the ones actually using the very tools for the very nefarious purposes you ascribe to scientists, except that the scientists' tools are accessible to everyone. So go and access them.

Have a look at what Michael Crichton( Well known sci fi writer)
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html ) has to
say about his early faith in science and how he became disillusioned. I feel
just the same.


  And... Crichton is your hero because he's finally come out as a
neoLuddite? Surprise, he always was.


No I haven't read any sci fi for years. No time. I'm too busy following
the mess our great minds are making.

Then don't raise straw men. Oh, and since when do scientists make policy? They don't, politicians do.

  Mark L. Fergerson
.