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WBraun
climber
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Feb 19, 2017 - 08:52am PT
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LOL ...
The poor guy has zero patience and tolerance.
Must be super extreme insecure .....
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 19, 2017 - 08:53am PT
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pss...
ps...
"your beaker boy science is god" -dmt
Science rocks.
I pity you that you don't have a passion for it,
that you just don't get it any deeper than superficially.
(But I also understand that at the deepest level it is not
your fault.)
When that day comes and somebody pisses on YOUR passion, you
think of me.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 19, 2017 - 09:04am PT
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Nobody is putting science down period.
It can't ever be done nor has it ever been done nor can it ever be done in the future, past or present .......
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Feb 19, 2017 - 09:08am PT
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Duck science in action...
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Feb 19, 2017 - 10:07am PT
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Sycorax,
I'm immediately beyond my depth, and am jealous of your studies.
Am I right in thinking that The major differences that are played out in the twists that Ulysses take the reader on, leave no doubt that Jocey's work is crafted,
In Finnegin's the drunken dabbling, into everything from nonsensically rhyming to flowery prose makes one wonder if they are just a mad mans' disconnected 'ramblin'on', in the form stream of consciousness rants.
The pithy or 'funny' is your own to internalize
In Ulysses the reader is forced to go back and forth, re-reading and re-evaluating what the meaning might be.
A fact that becomes obvious after half the pages have been read in both works is that the thick fog of meaning is obscure on purpose.
Sorry if that attempt to appear erudite on one of the most confusing chapters of writers. And writing tomes taken to the farthest realms of ambiguity, is an oversimplification.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Feb 19, 2017 - 11:24am PT
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HFCS: (1) "Agency" is doing, capability or power of some kind in pursuit of an aim, objective or goal. (2) As I clearly indicated above, the context in which I was considering the term was biology, evolution, game theory (evolutionary and general).
I’m glad that you mention biology and evolution.
“Agency” refers to an agent who is doing something . . . for whom? Whom is biology referring to? Or evolution? For whom is the agent responsible?
Game theory arose in many other areas than biology, mainly economics (focusing on equilibriums). One of its assumptions is that there are autonomous entities that make decisions that are meaningful, and that those decision makers are rational *when making* those decisions. That last part implies that there is a prescription smuggled into many of game theory’s applications. IMO, the theory tends to be rather “mindless” in that regard. Game theories are brittle. Go beyond a two-by-two (or highly limited) set of outcomes, and before you know it, the theories faces problems with the other part I mention above (rationality). When people face way too many variables and outcomes in a situation, they resort to heuristics. (The problem is called, “bounded rationality.”) People who hire other people should be well-acquainted with the problem of too many variables, too many instantiations, and too many objectives.
Game theory is a model. It can help to conceptualize a situation. This is what all models do. Game theory also conceptually limits what is believed possible. "It's either this or that" could also be the subtitle to the God vs. Science thread.
The best model tested so far has been “tit for tat” to my knowledge. (We don’t need Nash equilibriums for that.)
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 19, 2017 - 01:19pm PT
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Agency aside - it just means the biological entity can carry out instructions arising from a mysterious internal process and can somehow mediate those instructions when necessary - move on, folks - Game theory is *historically related to what's called the Lipshitz Condition (LC), a mathematical structure I play with all the time (|f(a)-f(b|<r|a-b|, r<1), and what is interesting to a mathematician is that this is a somewhat unusual requirement in many contexts.
If you look at the images I post from time to time, the wild fluctuations you see over small spaces may indicate the LC doesn't hold. In fact, there would be very few interesting images if it did hold - such images would be bland and of no consequence.
But I know very little about game theory, apart from its origins and a few examples. I'm sure it has become quite sophisticated and has grown away in many instances from reliance on the LC. MikeL knows more about the applications than the rest of us.
edit: correction for greater accuracy
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 19, 2017 - 01:22pm PT
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I always welcome comments from our resident literary scholar, Sycorax.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 19, 2017 - 02:42pm PT
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MikeL knows more about the applications than the rest of us.
re: game theory?
If so, I think that's pretty presumptuous. I would take that bet.
Too bad we couldn't take it to the mat.
Here there is just no tapping out, no having to tap out, is there?
Such a shame.
...
Game theory has at its historical basis what's called the Lipshitz Condition (LC)
What?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
Where is this reference to Lipschitz?
I studied game theory incl evolutionary game theory through John Maynard Smith's work, incl Prisoner's Dilemma, Hawk Dove, single play vs repetitive play and its various strategies e.g., tit for tat, two tit for tat, etc... and I've never had to consider or apply this Lipschitz condition (or continuity?) So I question this claim.
As far as moving on... Let's recall, my initial post was addressed exclusively to eeyonkee (pt of clarification; and it was answered), its context was evolution; further, "agency" is hardly an irrelevant or trivial matter when it concerns evolutionary theory, evolutionarily stable strategies, winning and losing, animal population studies, competence (incl mental competence), competition, the social game, cooperation, morality, etc..... an interest for some, clearly a "tedious" bore to others. So please move on if you like.
What's pretty obvious to me is that there are different levels of tolerance here on this thread. Tolerance for bullshit (nonsense, deflection, alternative facts, etc.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipschitz_continuity
That one would have to have this mathematical detail of this condition (or continuity) as shown on this wiki page for instance in order to have a good grasp of game theory as applied to genetic frequencies in evolutionary studies is ridiculous.
...
I'd like to suggest to anyone... if you find my posts "tedious" or what not, just do not respond to them. In return, I'm more than happy to do the same.
our resident literary scholar, Sycorax.
Oh please...
:/
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 19, 2017 - 03:46pm PT
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Here's my second cut at your question, HFCS. An agent in the biological world is like a class in the (object-oriented) programming world -- an entity that has both properties (attributes) and behaviors. In the biological world, this can operate at the gene, organism or groups of organisms level (even though I, like Richard Dawkins and others and unlike E. O. Wilson, believe that evolution only works at the level of the first two).
So, for instance, it would certainly be the case that a hive of bees has agency, IMO. (As does a mob of conservatives.)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 19, 2017 - 03:49pm PT
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Exactly, eeyonkee. You're perfectly clear.
And I bet if Pinker or Dennett or Harris or Tyson or Nye or Dawkins could read it, they too would be in perfect agreement (re: "agency" in evolutionary games).
And, btw, they would find this subject interesting and relevant and certainly not... tedious.
Wilson, as well!
I would add, in the context of evolutionary game theory or ecological games (of winning and losing) ... both the "agent" and the "agency" are goal-driven and strategy-driven (key concepts) and in the "doing" express a competence (for better or worse) in the face of competition.
For the record, my initial uncertainty concerned whether you thought "agency" was a fallacy if "free will" were a fallacy (again in evolutionary and ecological games context ala winners and losers, winning and losing). But you quickly clarified it.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 19, 2017 - 04:07pm PT
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Lately, I've been thinking that Wilson may be proved closer to the truth in the end after epigenetics is fully understood and factored into the equation. Dawkins could be correct in his arguments against group selection and at the same time group selection could be important for reasons other than classical natural selection arguments.
I've been thinking about this because of the obvious group identity dynamics taking place among humans in the US and elsewhere. These groups clearly have agency. It remains to be seen how long they will last and if they (their memes, really) will "evolve" into something else.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 19, 2017 - 04:20pm PT
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Over the years of following the arguments more or less, I've kind of settled into the view that this big issue of "group selection" might be as dependent on definitions and standards (re "what is a group" and "what qualifies as selection") as anything else.
In my past, it seems there were times I inclined towards Dawkins and his side, and then other times I inclined toward Gould, David Sloan Wilson, etc... And apparently now E.O. Wilson. (?)
I do accept "group selection" in some capacity - I'm just not sure it qualifies based on the criteria of Dawkins, Pinker and others.
btw, sometimes in lieu of selection (natural selection) I think in terms of natural filtration (or natural filtering) and I have wondered if that term, in the long run, might not have been more useful, perhaps less problematic.
Obviously a lot of filtering mechanisms (of all sizes and shapes) exist in the natural world. From the level of atoms and molecules and on up, to orbiting planets, etc...
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 19, 2017 - 04:28pm PT
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That one would have to have this mathematical detail of this condition (or continuity) as shown on this wiki page for instance in order to have a good grasp of game theory as applied to genetic frequencies in evolutionary studies is ridiculous
This is what happens when you wander outside whatever expertise you claim to have.
"Modern game theory began with the idea regarding the existence of mixed-strategy equilibria in two-person zero-sum games and its proof by John von Neumann. Von Neumann's original proof used Brouwer fixed-point theorem on continuous mappings into compact convex sets, which became a standard method in game theory and mathematical economics" Wiki
Simplest form: "In the plane every continuous function from a closed disk to itself has at least one fixed point"
"Poincaré's method [game theory] was analogous to that of Émile Picard, a contemporary mathematician who generalized the Cauchy–Lipschitz theorem.[28] Picard's approach is based on a result that would later be formalised by another fixed-point theorem, named after Banach. Instead of the topological properties of the domain, this theorem uses the fact that the function in question is a contraction" :
Let (X, d) be a metric space. Then a map T : X → X is called a contraction mapping on X if there exists q ∈ [0, 1) such that d(T(x),T(y))<q d(x,y)for all x,y in X. (Lipshitz contraction)
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 19, 2017 - 04:32pm PT
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Whatever.
I studied it 20 - 30 years ago based on John Maynard Smith and George Simpson, and then later also Dawkins and Axelrod, and I never encountered your term nor needed any of that mathematical detail you just posted to grasp the basic concepts.
Spirit of Hot Air...
You call me names. Beginning with "bigot" from last year based on nothing but naivete and bs. You expect me to be sympathetic or remain silent , I don't think so. This is the 21st century.
If you think I need to grasp your terms in bold (your previous post) to have a good grasp of evolutionary ecological game theory (Prisoner's Dilemma and on up) -which was my interest all along - then you are sadly mistaken.
Carry on with MikeL, Sycorax, Largo. WB, dmt all you want, you all deserve each other.
Correction: George Price, not George Simpson.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 19, 2017 - 04:41pm PT
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For super clarity, I'll repeat the claim, my claim, that you quoted...
That one would have to have this mathematical detail of this condition (or continuity) as shown on this wiki page for instance in order to have a good grasp of game theory as applied to genetic frequencies in evolutionary studies is ridiculous
I stand by this claim.
Once again, it hardly deserves the kind of response you gave it. It certainly doesn't justify name calling. Once upon a time, I had a good grasp of game theory (fully grasping Maynard's work, Axelrod's work, etc) enough to follow them and make sense of their work and implications (eg, re kin selection, reciprocal altruism, etc.) without any of the "mathematical detail" of cited wiki page.
So my claim stands as written.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 19, 2017 - 04:44pm PT
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And you remain an anonymous creature without even a photo of yourself. Are you that insecure? Are you a climber or have you ever been a climber? When you keep denigrating others on this forum it's irksome. One wonders why you continue to hide behind the facade you've built and instead come up into the open air and let us judge you for what you are. Show a little courage. I seem to recall you getting into an argument with Ed over electrical resistance, and coming out second place.
"Game theory has at its historical basis what's called the Lipshitz Condition (LC)" (me)
"What? I studied game theory incl evolutionary game theory through John Maynard Smith's work, incl Prisoner's Dilemma, Hawk Dove, single play vs repetitive play and its various strategies e.g., tit for tat, two tit for tat, etc... and I've never had to consider or apply this Lipschitz condition (or continuity?) So I question this claim." HFCS
I never said the applications to evolution, etc. required this knowledge. I was simply speaking of the history of the mathematical basis for game theory.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 19, 2017 - 04:47pm PT
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And you remain an anonymous creature without even a photo of yourself.
So what? lol
Are you a climber or have you ever been a climber?
So what? lol
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When you keep denigrating others on this forum it's irksome.
Are you friggin blind?!!!
"Denigrating" others?
Wb. Largo. Dmt. Sycorax.
I know. I am an atheist, worst sort.
You expect me to go away and sit quietly in the corner.
Well, that ain't happening any longer. This is the information age, the
science age, and the 21st century. Get real.
Ps...
Denigrating others? "Bigot" (jgill) And for what, my referring to my Iranian dorm mates in 1979 as fundamentalists (true) who took their Quran literally (true, just as I stated). We could ref the thread and the posts if you like.
No apology for the utterly naive and baseless remark either, I noted over time. So high and noble.
You are so biased on this thread, it is...
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Feb 19, 2017 - 04:54pm PT
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"Well, that ain't happening any longer. This is the infomation age, the
science age, and the 21st century. Get real."
Take your own advice.
;>)
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