Bah Humbug.
I feel very annoyed at everything. Firstly I’m finding R a difficult language to penetrate. I’m getting there, its just hard. There are lots of resources and people willing to help you get to grips with the tool, but getting to grips with the tool isn’t the problem., the problem is knowing what I’m doing with it.
The stats people are telling me that I’m supposed to be doing stats with it, I have a couple of stats books on my desk. I don’t get them. The data science people are telling me that I’m supposed to be coming up with a conclusion before I use R, and then use R to justify support what I’ve already decided. The cybernetics people are telling me that cybernetics is the science of regulating your ego and that I should put R down, buy a mirror, bully people on email and wear funky pants. I’m especially annoyed at cybernetics.
I think I am looking at the tool the wrong way. From school we are trained that natural selection is the answer, because, Darwin. It is used to explain how order arises. When I use R (or ABM for that matter) I am looking to explain what is happening at present. Present goings on are dictated through natural selection. But are they? Whilst this may be true to some extent shouldn’t we be looking deeper. Isn’t the whole thing underpinned by self organisation. I’m annoyed at Dawkins too. I found a quote somewhere.
selection has always acted on those systems that exhibit spontaneous order
I think I should be using R to find the principles of self organisation behind education. There once was a person who explained cybernetics too me and mumbled words like regulation and recursion. These words seem so important now and yet I can’t identify with the community. I just don’t have the pants.
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