Wed 19 Dec 2001
Future research should determine the processes involved in developing, fostering and maintaining intrinsic motivation.
.

Sat 15 Dec 2001
Letters to fran and others. - Sunday, read, write, wash, locate thrift stores.
Research plan and grad school of my own in two years or less, possibly NYC or Europe.
research focus and methodology.
research aim as I was saying to dana, how people formulate their own views about how to live life, what's important to life in societies which have ready access to the internet (need to operationalize the 'development' level I am looking for).
Yet, my aim is also the focus on my own experience as art, and to put myself in the most challenging, awe inspiring, new idea world concept exposing views.
Mind exploration.
As if, as it is, the social realm is a wilderness which can be made visible, and explorable by a set of techniques. Visualization techniques.

What of the emotional realm I personally live in. This realm I want to make my world composed of social entities, like a sight seeing tour, making all these incredible phenomena visible, so that they can be walked around and through and examined from different angles.

How shall I start? Just by wandering, as I'm doing now, and in time a path or building approach may become known. Work with power, a responsiveness.

http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/incidents.html
a grand research project that I found inspiring and absorbing. Those expereiences where you say wow!

rhythm, moderation.

soon after I finished Diminished Expectations, I was anxious to do some real thinking again.

real thinking

Michael Porter, the business strategist, a manuscript of 'the competitive advantage of nations.
role of regional industrial clusters in international competition.

Models of econ geog, started with complicated ideas then boiled it down.
Paul Krugman, 'Geography and Trade'

Isaac Asimov, Foundation series, psychohistorians

Geography and Trade.
econ geog as a branch of econ taken as seriously as international trade.

Coming up with a good idea, with an insight into the way the world works that is really new and that you really believe in, is a deeply satisfying experience.

The only thing that is even more satisfying is when one idea leads on to another, when you find yourself making a whole series of related discoveries.

you feel like some archetypal hero on a mythic quest.
once w/ new trade theory
again
with new econ geography.

Ec. geog is about increasing returns and multiple equilibria.
trade models on internal econ of scale.
geography about external economies and policy relevance.
the two lines of research are in some sense part of a larger project.

feels engaged in some kind of cumulative enterprise.

who does creative work must be something of a sleepwalker.
the future of creative work is unpredictable.
you can't know what you're going to do.
(1) the core set of ideas
WTF is happening when I read?
what is happening when I write? who works on these questions.
ask hal...
Google search, what is reading, people who study reading processes.
People who try to write programs that do what reading does.
People who try to write programs that do what writing does.
process of handwriting recognition.
from
http://writing.colostate.edu/references/reading/critread/com4b5.htm
As a reader, you actively make, or construct, meaning; what you bring to the text is at least as important as the text itself.

Readers construct meaning based not only on the visual cues in the text (the words and format of the page itself) but also based on non-visual information such as all the knowledge readers already have in their heads about the world, their experience with reading as an activity, and, especially, what they know about reading different kinds of writing.

 In other words, we integrate data from a text including its smallest and most discrete features as well as its largest, most abstract features. Usually, we don't even know we're integrating data from all these levels. In addition, data from the text is being integrated with what we already know from our experience in the world about all fonts, pictures, spelling, syntax, discourse, and the topic more generally. No wonder reading is so complex!

Should I just look up reading in encyclopedia britannica?

In yet another layer of complexity, readers also create for themselves an idea of what the text is about before they read it. In reading, prediction is much more important than decoding. In fact, if we had to read each letter and word, we couldn't possibly remember the letters and words long enough to put them all together to make sense of a sentence. And reading larger chunks than sentences would be absolutely impossible with our limited short-term memories.

So, instead of looking at each word and figuring out what it "means," readers rely on all their language and discourse knowledge to predict what a text is about. Then we sample the text to confirm, revise, or discard that hypothesis. More highly structured texts with topic sentences and lots of forecasting features are easier to hypothesize about; they're also easier to learn information from. Less structured texts that allow lots of room for predictions (and revised and discarded hypotheses) give more room for creative meanings constructed by readers. Thus we get office memos or textbooks or entertaining novels.

Understanding Reading: A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Reading and Learning to Read
Frank Smith.

Probably also need to get texts on linguistics.
let's get an intro linguistic text for Sunday.
Wittegenstein. 6:00-- I know nothing about linguistics.

Handbook of Reading Research.
Rebecca Barr - 1996
The psychology of reading
Alexander pollatsek
Reading and understanding
Schank, Roger C.
PhD in linguistics from UT
Need overviews of these topics--
chomsky
http://www.edge.org/discourse/about.html
we look for people whose creative work has expanded our notion of who and what we are.

We charge the speakers to represent an idea of reality by describing their creative work, their lives, and the questions they are asking themselves.
reality is an agreement. the constant shifting of metaphors, the intensity with which we advance our ideas.

the most challenging evenings are when the speakers present questinos they are asking themselves.

in cmu theory  info is not defined as a data or input but as a dif that makes a dif.

takethe materials of the culture int he arts, lit, ans science and put them together in their own way.
the rc consists of indivs who create their own reality and do not accept an erstatz appropriated reality.
rc diff from the algonquin, apostles, bloomsbury group, or The Club.

Lunar society of birmingham. John Brockman

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge95.html
We've gotten almost nowhere in how the bee's brain represents the simplicity of the dance language. Although any good biologist can predict where the bee is going we don't know how the brain performs that computation.

Chomsky's insights into the computational mechanisms underlying language really revolutionized the field


THE REALITY CLUB

Jaron  Lanier responds to Daniel C. Dennett



From: Jaron Lanier
Date: 11.21.01

Daniel Dennett has invented a role for himself as a sort of analytical angel who sits on the shoulders of scientists interested in minds, brains, and behavior, and makes observations that can, at their best, be startling and useful.

He might also be the most ambitious reductionist in all history outside of the clergy.

I'm going to focus here on his handling of questions that do not really matter to the conduct of science, but do influence the public at large.

I am not at ease with Dennett in his role as a philosopher of consciousness. The fundamentally odd thing about the human condition is that subjectivity is not objectivity; that we cannot empirically measure our own experience. Should we then decide that subjectivity does not exist? It's hard to pretend to not experience, but Dennett seems to be doing it, and I can't tell if he's sincere or just trying to be annoying for pleasure's sake.

Whether he's pretending or not, his position could have negative consequences if it catches on even more than it has. Science and rationality must compete for the hearts and minds of non-scientists who are also being wooed by superstitions of every stripe. If the mainstream of scientific opinion denies the very existence of subjectivity, instead of simply declaring the subject out of bounds for empirical study, the effect will be to send multitudes of reasonable people over to investigate whatever weird belief might seem more congruent with their experience of experience. When we overclaim, it's harder to criticize others who are overclaiming.

There's another instance of Dennett's reductionism going so far that it could dull the public's interest in science, and it concerns Darwin and evolution. There's almost a mania in his determination to convince us that we already understand more than we probably do. A sense of ennui sets in as Dennett stretches Darwin to explain everything complex. If Darwin really explained everything creative or complicated, and all that's left is a moping up operation, why should anyone be interested? Dennett is at his best interacting with scientists. Since he's also an influential figure to the wider society, I hope he'll think more about to alienate fewer people from science and rationality.

denies the existence of subjectivity?

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge92.html
one of the surprising things that I discovered in my work on the philosophy of biology is that when it comes to the phys sciences, any new theory is based on a law (?) wtf?

On a natural law.
-the 'law' is still an hypothesis continually being modified.

no laws in biology like those of physics.
a law must have no exceptions.

for something to be a law it has to have no exceptions- be beyond space and time.

bio laws

every general truth in bioloby though, is specific.

biological laws are restri

So we can say that there are no laws in biology,

Every general truth in biology though is specific.
laws  are restricted to certain parts of the living world, certain localized situations.

If scientific theories are based on laws and there are none in biology (in any field- even in phys, only attempts at laws), how can you have theories.

our theories are based on concepts.

if you go through the theories of evol bio, you find that they are based on concepts, such as natural selection, competition (which can be explained with models and operationally defined). Concepts- representations in models and language, which have corresponding operational defs which can be empirically tested.
the struggle for existence, female choice, male dominance, hundreds of such concepts.

ecology consists almost entirely of such basic concepts.

how do you know they're true?

***Don't forget about beauty mag idea*** pictures

you can know this only provisionally by continuous testing and you have to go back to historical narratives and other non-physicalist methods to determine whether your concept and the consequesnces that arise from it can be confirmed.

Is biology a narrative?
narratives.

darwin changed the foundations of Western thought.
I want to change the foundations of thoughts about life and human experience. Darwin's graphics, seemingly simple concept which required a ton of intellectual and research work.

biopopulation
every individual is uniquely different, exact opposite of racism.

refuted teleology-
*the mind is running me to feed and exercise the mind
*the use of metaphor.
Kant based his philosophy on Newton's laws. When applied to the
Newtonian laws didn't help him explain biological phenomena.

the use of ultimate purpose and meaning as a means of explaining natural phenomena.
emergent

nat sel applied to biopopulations of unique phenomena can explain all the puzzling phenomena for which previously the mysterious process of teleology had been invoked.

google is the internet. reality is probabilistic, reality is statistical.

willard van orman quine.

something that can be carefully analyzed can give you answers without having to invoke something you cannot analyze.

replaced theological science with secular science.

so darwin had an amazing impact, not just on evolutionary theory, but on many aspects of everyday human thought.

each 'period'? in world history.

concepts.


Num
Mark
AUTHORS (1-12 of 13)
Year
Schank Roger C 1946-

1

Beliefs, Reasoning, And Decision Making : Psycho-Logic In Honor Of Bob Abelson / edited By Roger C. Schank, Ellen Langer.
1994.

2

The Cognitive Computer : On Language, Learning, And Artificial Intelligence / Roger C. Schank With Peter G. Childers.
1984.

3

Computer Models Of Thought And Language, / edited By Roger C. Schank [And] Kenneth Mark Colby.
[1973]

4

Conceptual Information Processing / Roger C. Schank, Including Contributions By Neil M. Goldman, Cha
1975.

5

The Connoisseur's Guide To The Mind : How We Think, How We Learn, And What It Means To Be Intelligen / Roger C. Schank.
c1991.

6

Dynamic Memory : A Theory Of Reminding And Learning In Computers And People / Roger C. Schank.
1982.

7

Explanation Patterns : Understanding Mechanically And Creatively / Roger C. Schank.
1986.

8

Inside Case-Based Explanation / Roger C. Schank, Alex Kass, Christopher K. Riesbeck.
1994.

9

Inside Case-Based Reasoning / Christopher K. Riesbeck, Roger C. Schank.
1989.

10

Inside Computer Understanding : Five Programs Plus Miniatures / edited By Roger C. Schank, Christopher K. Riesbeck.
1981.

11

Reading And Understanding : Teaching From The Perspective Of Artificial Intelligence / Roger C. Schank.
1982.

12

Scripts, Plans, Goals, And Understanding : An Inquiry Into Human Knowledge Structures / Roger C. Schank, Robert P. Abelson.
1977.

Tell Me A Story : A New Look At Real And Artificial Memory / Roger C. Schank.
c1990.

a couple of important books that have been responsible for everybody's thinking.
1 bible, then
das kapital
then Freud
then Origin of Species

and a host of basic concepts.

********************
How do you account for the fact that
in this country, despite the effect of Darwinism on many ..
more and more people are god fearing and believe in the 8 days of creation????
******

the average American is amazingly ignorant.
I can't explain how an entire nation can be so ignorant, but there it is.

Would I now say, I'm sorry, but you're an idiot to these people?
who say there are problems with Darwin's ideas? That girl regarding teaching english in italy.

FAcsimilie edition
Havard university press.

What darwin really said- 3000 a year.

In the first eidition of the Origin of the Species, there's not a single misprint. What a document of workmanship in 1859

the question of the target of selection.
the idea that a few people have about the gene being the target of selection is completely impractical.

a gene never vis to nat sel

it is the whole genotype, not the gene

w hamilton, george williams and jm smith -

evolutionary epitemology.
if you have a lot of variation, more than you can cope with, only the most successful will remain......
that is how things happen. in epistemology and countless other fields.
variation and elimination.

more evolu epist in Germany and Austria than US.

darwin better known in england.

Maynard smith, game theory to evolution.



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