Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:07:57 -0400
Reply-To: Joe Whitehurst <joewhitehurst@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: Joe Whitehurst <joewhitehurst@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Can SAS-L be improved?
In-Reply-To: <201007130338.o6CHx4tv019006@willow.cc.uga.edu>
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*oloolo,*
*
*
*I have no reason to believe that the human brain has any intelligence
whatsoever. The human mind is something altogether different, however.*
*I make extensive use of both Factor Analysis & Principal Components
Analyses. I mostly use both tools to reduce dimensionality in data sets of
multidimensional reference axes (n-dimensional coordinate systems)--which
are bipolar in nature. I deal with negative factor (or component) loadings
by "reflecting" them so that all loadings are positive. In my work I deal
with the mind, and I take an unapologetic approach that accepts the
multidimensional nature of the mind phenomenon or mind event. If pushed, I
will cite C. Lloyd Morgan's (following Alfred North Whitehead) notion of the
**"**emergent**” to** explain how the mind is completely different from and
separate from the brain. I'm not certain how far down the evolutionary
taxonomy I would go with this notion, but I'm certain the mind event is not
limited to humans. I completely ignore Rene Descartes except for his most
important contribution--his construction of, or notion of, the Cartesian
Coordinate System. I leave the brain to the Biologists and their brethren,
the Physiologists and their very distant relatives, the Biochemists. And I
have been singularly unimpressed with what the Physicist, all of them of
whatever flavor, have suggested. And don't get me started on the
"Cognitive-Neuro-Scientists" or whatever they call themselves today that is
thought to be fashionable and thus have social status in today’s'
technological climate. Who knows what tomorrow may bring? I think I can see
just over the horizon a group calling themselves
Political-Economic-Financial-Behavioral-Cognitive-Neuro-Scientists with
geopolitical ambitions! I fear Sara Palin will be their leader.
When I hear or see today’s "Cognitive-Neuro-Scientists" excitedly, and
pretentiously report that they have imaged metabolic activities in various
parts of the brain using MRI, CAT scans, CT scans, PET or, the latest
wrinkle, 64-slice PET-CT that are associated with various “thoughts” or
“cognitive activities”, I am prompted to ask, “So what”. These small
research groups behave like roving bands of Aborigines from tribes located
in the Outback of Australia or the remote jungles of Brazil who happen upon
a working battery powered portable color TV. They can change the picture and
sound by pushing buttons, twisting knobs, and poking a stick into the
innards until they poke too hard or in the wrong place and it stops working.
But they have no possible understanding of any of the principles involved
that produce the pictures and sound. So too the Cognitive-Neuro-Scientists,
They have no possible understanding of what principles are involved in
producing the “thought” or “cognitive activities”. And sometimes they too
poke too hard or in the wrong place, and the helpless creature stops
“working”.
**
*
*Joe
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 11:38 PM, oloolo **<dynamicpanel@yahoo.com>**wrote:
*
>
> *no matter how sophisticated a search engine is, the intelligence of human
> brain is not replaceble, hence I think SAS-L still stands on top of all
> forums/knowlege Xchange portals, especially SAS-L has a loyal high quality
> professionals who are actively responing to Q's here. This Q/A forum is
> sometimes better than a knowlege Xchange portal in the sense that for
> inexperienced users, they may not know exactly what to search for and an
> experienced user can guide them through via posting back and forth. This is
> more of a Class Room style v.s. self study style. For talented and
> experienced student, self study may be superior but for average Joe, a
> professor is of great help.
>
> The drop in hits may be due to the fact that new SAS users post on other
> forums so that the visibility of SAS-L is decreased among all clouds rising
> in recent years. I also check out SAS groups on * *linkedin.com*<http://linkedin.com>
> * but not mostly
> remain silent there. Examine the activity freqency and recency of top
> posters on SAS-L will be an interesting sub-task and I've made a note of
> this on my list.
>
> On Sun, 11 Jul 2010 13:34:47 -0400, Arthur Tabachneck <* *
> art297@NETSCAPE.NET* <art297@NETSCAPE.NET>*>
> *
> *wrote:
>
> >Jay,
> >
> >It's a nice concept, but so are all of the others.
> >
> >What I was thinking about was actually something similar to a cross
> >between Les Jansen's site, those search engines that submit a search to
> >multiple search engines and show the results in separate windows, and a
> >single point of entry that would allow one to simultaneously post to one
> >or more of those sites as well as enroll and specify the degree of
> >interaction they want with each.
> >
> >Art
> >---------
> >On Sun, 11 Jul 2010 11:34:21 -0400, Jay Stevens <* *
> jay.l.stevens@GMAIL.COM* <jay.l.stevens@GMAIL.COM>*>
> >wrote:
> >
> >>I've raised this same question a few times here over the last 2 years.
> >Most
> >>recently 9 months ago, I posted this:
> >>
> >> RunSubmit.com is a knowledge exchange site that is focused
> exclusively
> >>on SAS. It uses a reputation system and collaborative voting to ensure
> >that
> >>the best and most helpful answers to questions are bubbled up to the top.
> >>
> >> Historically, the primary user-driven community for information about
> >>programming and using SAS was SAS-L, the usenet newsgroup comp.soft-
> >sys.sas.
> >>This creates a problem for the user in search of knowledge about SAS.
> >While
> >>much of the content on SAS-L is useful and usable, its not always
> >accessible
> >>and the user is left to filter the signal from the noise themselves.
> >>RunSubmit.com avoids this issue. Interesting and Useful questions are
> >voted
> >>up by the community. Interesting and useful answers are likewise voted
> >up,
> >>ensuring that the wisdom of the crowd is leveraged for all users.
> >Overall,
> >>it has the potential to be a significantly better model than SAS-L.
> >UseNet
> >>newsgroups served their purpose, but really amounts to not much more than
> >>searching through a stack of email conversations which users (who are
> just
> >>looking for answers) are forced.
> >>
> >> In addition, each question on **runsubmit.com*<http://runsubmit.com>
> * can have multiple tags
> >which
> >>allows for a rich categorization of the content to better enable relevant
> >>searching.
> >>
> >> RunSubmit.com is built on top of the same technology that drives
> >>**www.stackoverflow.com* <http://www.stackoverflow.com>* (the
> programming Q&A site that has quickly become
> >one
> >>of the top 500 sites on the web) and uses a similar system of reputation
> >and
> >>xbox-style badges to encourage community participation in something of an
> >>addictive way. In addition, as users reach higher levels of reputation,
> >>they are granted more capabilities in the system. Ultimately, once the
> >>system trusts you through your reputation, both questions and answers
> >become
> >>editable in a wiki-like way. This allows those users who have earned the
> >>trust of their peers to continually improve the questions and answers
> over
> >>time.
> >>
> >>Andrew's list of alternate sources of SAS information highlights the
> >>problem. There are hundreds of forums/outlets for potentially good SAS
> >>information on the web, but without some kind of collaborative filtering
> >to
> >>encourage the best, most-useful, most-helpful content to rise to the top,
> >>none of these are any better than doing a search through that stack of
> >>emails.
> >>
> >>The content and knowledge found in SAS-L over the decades is amazing.
> >>Unfortunately, I think that time will shows that SAS-L (as a useful and
> >>usable channel to access that information) has been dying a slow death
> for
> >>years with the advent of the social media uprising.
> >>
> >>Go check it out and see if there might be a slightly better way to do
> >this.
> >>**www.runsubmit.com* <http://www.runsubmit.com>*
> *
>
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