Gaussian anthropology

[halfjack]

Either everything is deeply interrelated or there are ideas whose time has come or, perhaps, I see patterns where there aren't any. I say this because whenever I read two or three interesting things in a row, no matter how diverse, I see ways in which they are saying the same thing. Perhaps I have a gift for synthesis.

Comments

Frac'n fractals

[koala_bob]

A gift for synthesis indeed! Your succinct description of agency is remarkable, particuarly given less than 48 hours gestation. If the graduate comprehensive exam answers that I am currently marking were half as cohenrent as this my job would be a joy.

Re: 'Gaussianism'. It is a model that works in many contexts (even your 'average salary' example could be explained in terms of a bi-modal gaussian distribution). But as you point out, the pattern may be even better explained as something more complex (and elegant) - i.e., fractal patterning. This is actually really useful to me, as the same pattern seems to occur in settlement patterns, household size and social hierarchies; things that I have been trying to model statistically for some time now.

Ever consider writing a book, Brad?

Re: Frac'n fractals

[halfjack]

I'm glad I got the salient points out of the material, though we've been wielding the word "agency" around the game design/theory world for a while and the intention is similar

Re: Frac'n fractals

[koala_bob]

'Outliers'. Ok, now you've touched a nerve. There is a lot of misundertanding with respect to why outliers are discarded from an analysis. If a value falls far from the expected range of values it is typically assumed to be due to one of two things - either it is an error or it is something that is very different from the things that were being studied. In the latter case discarding the outlier is not a refusal to acknowledge that it exists, but rather, recognition that it requires reclassification. In your 'salaries' example, in reality there are likely to be four or five modes, representing 1. working joes, 2. urban professionals, 3. coporate directors/hockey players/drug dealers, 4. corporate owners, and 5. oil/computer tycoons and royalty. If you're gathering data on salaries of urban professionals in Vancouver and you found one individual who was 6 sigma above the mean, then you would be wise to conclude that that that individual should not be classified as an urban professional

Re: Frac'n fractals

[halfjack]

That all makes good sense to me, and certainly being able to change your model to account for outliers is valuable academically, but there's still a tail-eating problem there -- the assumption that the Gaussian model still holds, but that you just have a new category with a new curve. I guess in the end you're necessarily approximating what's really a massively multi-variate and dynamic (and therefore fundamentally intractable) function

Gaussian Anthropology

[koala_bob]

It took a while to sink in (apparently about the length of time it takes to clean a bathroom), but I just now understand the main point of your 'Gaussian Anthropology' synthesis. What you say is true, there is a very strong correlation between theoretical perspectives and statistical models. The 'traditional' perspective as you call it (we call it 'processual' e.g., cultural ecology, marxism etc..), is based on a 'normative' view of culture -- that is the view that within any cultural tradition/system there are 'normal' ways of doing things, that the majority of the participants are consciously or unconsciously influenced/controlled by and drawn to. Whereas more recent ('post-processual' [read 'post-modern']; e.g., agency, critical theory, post structuralism) theoretical perspectives challenge that notion and propose that 'norms' don't really exist. This is analogous and perhaps related to the rejection of the Gaussian distribution (commonly called the 'normal distribution') as a mathematical model of behaviour

Re: Gaussian Anthropology

[halfjack]

Well it's a fortunate collision between recent reading (Taleb) and the papers on agency you sent me. Any more than another week or so between them and it probably wouldn't have occurred to me. Another black swan, in a sense -- I wonder how much connectivity we miss because we read intrinsically connected things only a little too far apart.

Re: Gaussian Anthropology

[halfjack]

Or because we tend to read obviously related material and not enough disparate material.