Danger! May change your views!

The day begun with a keynote by Dennis Meadows on his ‘Limits to Growth’ work. I came away the following ideas:

• There’s a distinction between global problems and universal problems. Global problems affect everyone and cannot be solved without cooperation from everyone, whereas universal problems affect everyone but can be solved by local groups. Some issues mash up global and universal issues. For example, climate change a global problem, but its effects effects are universal problems; that is, we can’t stop climate change without global collaboration but we can deal with rising sea levels on a local level. Obviously, universal problems are simpler to deal with.
• There’s another distinction between preventive and adaptive policy. Preventive policy seeks to address potential future problems, while adaptive policy seeks to mitigate current problems. Adaptive policies are easier to gain support for because they address problems whose effects are immediate.\
• A disproportionately large amount of the innovation going on with respect to limits to growth is happening at the local and metropolitan levels. Why is this? There seems to be a lot of possible reasons, here’s a few off the top of my head: local government has control over much physical infrastructure that can be adapted, smaller groups are able to reach consensus more easily over desirable projects, less variation in the political views of people in local groups as compared to national groups. This would make an interesting problem for someone. What do you think?
• Malthus was right, just a bit early. If we’re serious about reducing the human impact on the planet, we need to be serious about reducing or even slightly reversing population growth. Even if in the longer term we think we can adapt ourselves and our practices to increase the Earth’s carrying capacity, it’s still arguably the case that reduced population growth would help support higher living standards across the world.
• Sustainable doesn’t mean cheap. In some cases, durable, well-made, luxury goods are more sustainable than cheap disposable goods. Compare a expensive pen that can be refilled and that is well cared for with a simple throwaway, disposable pen.
• Drawing from the previous example, sustainability pertains strongly to behaviour, not just technology. Arguably, we can improve the sustainability of our lifestyles more through behavioural changes (though not just recycling!) than through technical changes.

Next up was the morning’s parallel session. I was a little distracted as I was presenting my paper “Exploring the dynamics of Music Piracy”, so I didn’t take notes on any of the other papers during this session. There was one in particular I wanted to see, but regretfully couldn’t: “Economic Origins of the Mafia and Patronage System in Sicily“.

For lunch we tried out a local burger chain. It was .. interesting.

Unfortunately, of the papers I saw in the afternoon, three out of five really didn’t grab me. Another, “Model-based exploration of strategies for fostering adoption of improved seed in West Africa“, was quite interesting, but my laptop was out of battery so I didn’t get good notes. Worth a look if you’re into intellectual property, biotech, or developing nations.

The last paper, “Developing Causal Map Codebooks to Analyze Policy Recommendations“, by Michael Deegan was particularly interesting. It sought to analyze the structure of policy recommendations in order to understand why recommendations are very rarely followed (at least in the domain and context of flood plain management by the US Army Corps of Engineers). Here’s what I took away:

• There’s a variety of reasons why  recommendations might not be taken up. They may be complex and difficult to understand by non-expert policy-makers; they may be too massive and intricate; there may incorporate significant uncertainty; they may be impossible or impractical to implement in an accountable manner; or their implications might not be clear. On top of these chiefly bureaucratic reasons, there are the normal political considerations of ideology, budget, time, political capital, emotional appeal, and special interests.
• The core idea was that by drawing causal maps of a recommendation, including all of the causal relationships and arguments that drive it, it can be made much more accessible both to policy makers and the public, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will be taken up. The basic idea, then, is that arguments can be teased out of prose and into graphical diagrams, helping to reveal the complexities, fallacies and implications that would otherwise be hidden. I’ve toyed with this in the past to the point of half writing a proposal based on it, and so I made sure I had a good chat with the author afterwards. I’m particularly interested in the idea of an intelligent parsing agent that is able to extract arguments from text and graphically represent them. In doing this, their structure would become computationally manipulable, enabling tools that correct, interpret, or integrate arguments. I should probably finish writing this idea up at some point.

The day ended with a reception at the Albuquerque Museum. There were the normal speeches, then a marvellously enthusiastic musical group consisting almost entirely of marimba players. They were both inspiring and amusing to watch, what with the furiously pounding on a giant bass marimba and the general leaping about. Photos later.

So, I’m at the 27th International System Dynamics Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the moment and, like any wannabe writer with a blog, I’m going to make an attempt at live blogging it.

My flights were nice and comfortable, though the second one, from Phoenix to Albuquerque was seriously delayed. At first, this was due to the plane lacking some internal power unit necessary to start the engine, thus requiring the use of some special plane starting device on a truck. Then, once that was sorted, we still had to wait for the plane to cool down – apparently sitting in the sun for a day in Arizona means an internal temperature of something like 55 degrees Celsius (130 F). As a result, I didn’t get to Albuquerque till about 1:30am, well after the office closed at my hostel. By the time I’d woken one of the staff, found my key, and all that, I didn’t get to sleep till about 2:30am.

Figuring that I wouldn’t get much out of the day if I didn’t have at least 7 hours sleep, I skipped the first couple of presentations, and arrived there a little after 10:30, just in time for the end of a presentation on some kind of network modelling.

Before I start talking about specific presentations, though, I should first provide a brief overview of System Dynamics for the uninitiated. Basically, it’s a method of modelling the dynamics within complex systems by specifying mathematical relationships between specific quantities both abstract and concrete. It’s different from a lot of mathematical models because it focuses on the relationships within whole systems and the simultaneous dynamics of multiple variables, rather than focusing on specific individual variables in isolation. There’s a number of relatively famous books either about or employing System Dynamics that you may have heard of:

• The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge
• Urban Dynamics and Industrial Dynamics by Jay Forrester
• Limits to Growth by Donella and Dennis Meadows

System Dynamics is related to the work of Norbert Wiener, the General Systems Theory of Bertalanffy, and the cybernetics employed by James Lovelock in his Gaia hypothesis. It’s variously called systems thinking, industrial dynamics, business dynamics, and many other things. There are, apparently subtle differences between all of these, but I’m too new an initiate to know them. Working with it leaves you talking a lot about positive and negative feedback loops, stable and unstable systems, death spirals, exponential and goal-seeking growth, and exogenous and endogenous variables. If any of those phrases sound familiar, you can probably work out approximately what this is all about.

I’m hoping this description isn’t just making you more confused, but I know it’s only just scratching the surface; for a better introduction, check out the article on wikipedia.

Like any modelling methodology, the predictions of made by models in this field are by no means perfect, but it has the advantage that much of its discourse involves explicit acknowledgement and discussion of the sources of model error. Errors often come from boundary conditions (which factors do you model, and which do you leave out?), nonlinearity and discontinuity (how reliable is our knowledge of the relationship between correlated variables?), and input data (how reliable are the statistics you’re putting into your model?). Even ignoring the precision or accuracy of its predictions, System Dynamics offers a way of examine the relationships between the parts of one’s conceptions of a real world system, bringing up inconsistencies and fallacies that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

That’s enough for this post. Hopefully, tonight I’ll post highlights of the first day of the conference, otherwise I’ll wrap it in with tomorrow’s events.

Yesterday was very strange.

Do you ever have those days where you just can’t get anything done? Where all of the things you know are important just seem silly and pointless? Where a Herculean effort is required even to force yourself to put your laundry away?

Of course you do. Everyone has bad days. If you don’t, please comment and tell me your secret.

The thing is, there wasn’t anything actually wrong yesterday. I was in palpably good humour, the weather was pleasant, and nothing went particularly wrong, with the exception of me leaving my gym gear at home, thus being unable to go to Kung Fu practice, my last chance of salvaging the day.

OK. So I get that bad days sometimes happen. But here’s the weird thing. When I finally went to bed late that night, I picked up my notebook and started thinking about the things I needed to do the next day. As I looked over the notes for my various projects, the scrawled to-do lists, and the barely legible Awesome Plans, I felt enthusiastic, organized, and in control. “Huh, that’s funny. I guess the bad day is over”, I thought to myself. “Maybe tomorrow will be better”. A few minutes later though, I got to thinking back on the day, idly wondering which of my many tasks I could have got done had I been less out of it. Those same tasks, which had seemed interesting and important a few minutes ago, suddenly become lackluster, and even painful to contemplate, merely by me having placed them in the context of the bad day.

While I’m sure this has happened to me before, this time I noticed it clearly, and had the presence of mind to play with it a little. By switching back and forth, I could discern that framing tasks in the context of the bad day made them awful, while framing them in the context of the next day made them seem exciting. It was like there was some unholy taint associated with the bad day that spread to anything I contemplated, and even though this was all in the past and there was no way I could make myself perform those tasks in that context, they still felt horrid!

This makes no sense!!

The perception that a day is bad doesn’t seem like it should affect my perception so much. But moreso, I never thought I could manipulate my own enthusiasm and motivation in such a way. Of course, this was a special case – while I could try to avoid thinking of things within a negatively loaded context like this, I don’t really grasp yet how I could use this to positively motivate myself. The experience has opened my eyes to this as a possibility, however.

For the moment, then, the lesson I’m taking is that context plays a much larger role than I ever realized in determining the desirability of things.

Just another way in which we humans aren’t entirely rational, I guess.

This is the third in a series of posts about music appreciation. In previous posts, I argued that:

1. Explaining our preferences with ‘taste’ doesn’t help a lot. All it really does is hide their complexities and protect us from the challenge of having to explain ourselves.
2. Preferences are better explained using ‘facets’ of appreciation that each captures a different way that music might stimulate us. This by no means eliminates subjectivity, but providese a vocabulary, we can use to more easily understand and talk about preferences.  In particular, we become able to describe different people’s taste as differences in the priority or content of the facets they use.

So, what are some example facets? Here’s a list of the ones I’ve been able to identify so far:

• Structure – The simplest facet is that of musical structure. It’s obvious to every listener that different styles of music have different structures to them, and it seems that, likewise, different listeners have different affinity for different structural elements. Some listeners like complex layered melody, while others prefer simple, accessible tunes. I’m no expert in music theory; my point is that musical structure plays a role in defining our preferences, and that there is no universal agreement on what makes for ‘good’ musical structure (excluding, perhaps, chaos and discordance). Here are some structural elements I commonly consider when trying to explain my own preferences:
  • Harmony
  • Melody
  • Beat & Percussion
  • Complexity
  • Tone
• Nostalgia – There is some music that I like simply because it reminds me of a particular time, place, or event in my past. This facet is extremely subjective, and often difficult to explain in other ways. For me, examples of this are the Phantom of the Opera (which I listened to a lot when I was about 10), remixes of the music from old Commodore 64 games, and music like Shriekback, Sisters of Mercy, and Headless Chickens, all of which remind me of parties. Depending on the emotional character of my response, nostalgia might cause me to really like a piece of music, or really hate it.
• Milieu – Similarly to nostalgia, some music evokes a particular setting, or place, or environment, and gains emotional significance from this that affects appreciation for it. The difference is that the association is not based strongly on a particular past experience. For example, one might appreciate music that evokes a particular historical period, or music that is ’science-fictiony’. This is less subjective than nostalgia, but still quite so.
• Emotional – Music very often evokes particular emotional responses that are not associated with any particular memory or milieu, but are the result of the music’s style, key, tempo, use of motifs and so forth. This form of emotional response to music seems the least subjective; for example, people can often agree easily on whether music is sombre, cheerful, or inspirational.
• Utility – A lot of people seem to appreciate music that is good for some particular purpose. This might be music that’s good to code to (for me, that’d be Jeroen Tel, Machinae Supremacy, and similar stuff), music that’s relaxing, music that’s good to dance to, or even music that’s good to garden to (Vangelis’ Soil Festivities).
• Skill Display – Some music is attractive because of the performer’s skill. This occurs often when there is strong emphasis on a solo performer, such as in violin concertos, jazz, and some prog rock. I also get this feeling when I watch group performances where, in addition to their skill in playing their instruments, the performers exhibit great skill in coordinating their performance. For some people, there’s a point at which displays of skill shift from awesome to pretentious, but to some extent, I think virtuosity is a fairly universal facet of apprecation. Incidentally, in his cluster definition of art, Dutton identifies skill display as one of its key features (see my previous post).
• Fellow Musicians – I’m not particularly skilled in any instrument, but I know that players of an instrument can appreciate music using that instrument on a level that non-players cannot, because they can consider in more detail the skills and techniques that the performer is using. Fellow musicians might also appreciate music because of the joy it gives them when they perform it themselves. For example, I particularly enjoy music that I can sing to.
• Social – Music often plays important social roles. It might signal membership of some group, it might be linked with particular social or cultural phenomena (birthday songs, carols, Auld Lang Syne), it might have some ritual meaning (hymns), or it might be a way of establishing group solidarity (anthems). This can apply to groups of any size, from nations to couples (“it’s our song!!”, she exclaimed).
• Novelty – Novelty definitely affects appreciation. Songs can get old over time, and there’s a definte good feeling associated with discovering a new band. That said, there’s a point where nostalgia takes over, and old songs are revived (80s music!). While I enjoy finding new music, I think this facet isn’t as important to me as it is to others; I’d usually rather let other people go searching, then ask for their recommendations.
• Narrative – Music, like much other art, can tell a story, and appreciation of that story affects appreciation of the music overall. Narrative might be overt, dominating and structuring the music (musicals), it might be more abstract, where the relationship between the narrative and music is less clear (movie adaptations and medleys), or it might be subtle, where the narrative is embodied in the structure of the music and not made explicit (The Firebird, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade).
• Lyrics – Music often has lyrics, and these can significantly affect appreciation, not at the level of narrative, but at that of words and phrases. Depending on the topic, lyrics are often unimportant to me, particularly given the normal topics of love, sex, and betrayal. Lyrics that are political or philosophical, though, seem better able to grab my attention. One good example is ‘Amused to Death‘ by Roger Waters.

Obviously, this list isn’t exclusive, nor does it correspond to anything empirical – it’s almost entirely a product of introspection, with much inspiration from talking to others about their preferences over the years. I’m simply trying to build a vocabulary of ways in which we can think about our preferences for music so that I can avoid having to talk in simple terms of taste.

I’d be particularly interested to hear suggestions for other facets if you’ve got them..

As mentioned in my first post, I doubt any of this is original, but this doesn’t concern me. In fact, I’d be really interested to see research looking at this sort of thing – I’d be particularly interested in seeing, for example, some sort of data analysis performed on responses given by listeners trying to explain their reaction to particular pieces of music.

In my next, and probably last, post on this topic, I want to talk about the why of all of this – why I find preferences interesting to discuss, and why I get driven insane by people taking my desire for analysis of taste as being somehow critical of them.

I started blogging back in 2001 with an account on LiveJournal. Most of what I wrote back then was just personal reflections, accounts of events in my life, and the occasional rant about my employers. I didn’t have any coherent reason for keeping a blog; it was just kinda cool and gave me a forum for venting. Most of those posts are no longer up, though I’ve still got them archived and may someday pull them out again and re-post the few insightful ones.

In late 2002, I stopped posting things on LJ. I don’t recall there being any particular reason; I think I just wasn’t sitting in front of a computer as often as I had been, and so never got around to posting. But then, in 2005, I went on a trip to Germany and Austria, and, with five hours waiting at Changi Airport in Singapore, revived my LJ as a place to post photos and talk about my travels. From then, I continued to post occasionally, though still with no particular mission in mind.

During 2006, after having finished writing my Masters thesis, I started to care more about writing. I don’t think the substance of what I was posting was any different but I began to think about the process of writing and articulate my reasons for doing so more clearly. I began to think about my blog (still on LJ) as not just an online journal for the interest and amusement of my friends, but as a place for me to try and write seriously.

Then, in 2007, I spent three months travelling around Europe. I didn’t write much, but I did read a lot and listen to a lot of podcasts, lectures, and the like. Doing this, I think I learned a lot about expression and the different sorts of voices out there talking about the things I’m interested in. I found that the ones I really appreciated were from those whose primary contribution was not the originality of their ideas, but their ability to synthesize the ideas into a coherent message, to reflect on the implications of those ideas, and to analyze and understand their weaknesses. I started to value conversational voices much more than expository voices.

Just after New Years in 2008, I sat on a hilltop near Christchurch in my car with my notebook open, trying to decide what things were important to me and that I wanted to spend my then copious spare time on. I decided that one of my goals for the year was to ‘get into the conversation’, to define my own voice with more clarity, to refine it, and then to start learning and interacting with others. The first step was to begin the move from LJ to my WordPress blog at www.meme-hazard.org.

Now, as then, I have no particular message that I want to proselytize. I simply want to hold forth my opinion, presenting and synthesizing the ideas that I find interesting and compelling. I don’t want to be a preacher on a soapbox, trying to push a particular message; rather, I like the idea of a philosopher’s circle consisting of some number of learned yet respectful individuals sitting under a tree, or in a coffee shop, discussing, critiquing and pontificating on whatever seems interesting at the time.

Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to form such a circle, either virtually with my blog or in reality, with my friends. I made a few attempts with the ‘Brains and Coffee’ events I tried to organize in mid 2008, but with my departure, those ended. Certainly, what I learn from formulating my thoughts in order to put them down has helped me discuss things in social circumstances, but, as yet, I haven’t managed to create such a circle. I’m almost certainly just not doing the right things, though mostly because I’m just not sure what those things are.

Though probably the most flattering of my motivations and probably the most personally significant, there are several others:

• Writing is therapeutic. It gives me an outlet to rant and think through things that are plaguing me. It lets me get things off my chest. This post is an example of that.
• Writing forces me to clearly formulate my meaning. This helps me clarify my thoughts and arguments and gain more appreciation for things such that, hopefully, I understand them with more depth. This is mostly why I write reviews of games, for example.
• Similarly, writing about an idea can sometimes helping me understand it in the first place. By working out how to explain something, I understand it better myself.
• Sometimes, I still use my blog as a journal, posting about whatever is going on in my life, or showing off photos I’ve taken recently.
• I’m human, so of course I use my blog as a means of social signalling. By this, I mean our sometimes subconscious attempt to use communication to affect people’s impressions of us and increase our social status in some way. This is the ‘look at me, look at me’ side of blogging where, by posting on a topic, I’m trying to demonstrate my knowledge and currency in that topic. This is, of course, perfectly natural and probably unavoidable, but has always seemed just a bit shameless to me. I just wish that recognizing this didn’t make me feel so damned self-conscious.
• Finally, I write to get better at writing. I’m fairly certain that sometimes my writing is ponderous and boring, while at other times it’s really good. The problem is, I don’t know what I’m doing differently! So, I seek to improve my style through practice. I also want to be better at getting into the groove. Sometimes I can spend hours wandering around doing minor chores, planning to write, but it never comes out. I’ve slowly been discovering tricks that do make the process easier, but even today, I tried to write for several hours before eventually writing this, which wasn’t actually what I had intended to write in the first place.

I don’t know if they’re particularly novel or insightful, but the words in this blog are mine. I can’t remember who first said that ‘we stand on the shoulders of giants’. No ideas are wholly original, and there’s nothing actually wrong with that. Taking an idea, turning it around in your head and then re-presenting it to an audience in your own way and with your own perspective is a perfectly respectable activity. It’s nice to have original ideas, but if you only write things that you’re convinced are absolutely new, you’ll never write anything. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t strive for originality, that we should dismiss creativity, or that we should be at all satisfied with plagiarism. Rather, it just tries to emphasize humility in the writing process.

So, this is my blog, and my voice. The things I say will be varied and maybe not all of interest. But I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy keeping it.

For those reading this somewhere other than meme-hazard, that’s the blog I’m referring to