Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Resilience Project White Paper
(Response to note from The
Speaker’s Office [376] )
(Response à to [376] )
Starting the Discussion with the National Science Foundation
About the proposed Resilience Project
I should be clear. Speaking
in English seems to be not enough? (See Paul Werbos's communication [388] )
One problem with government funding of the "best science" concept is that reality becomes distorted. Absolute power over the evolution of science is vested in the hands of increasing arrogant elites (as a general principle – not necessarily reflective of any part of the current discussion).
Any attempt to start a new discussion is stopped by some attention to some dumb thing - such as the points Paul Werbos makes. The merits of the Resilience Project are not discussed, because ? ... ( Is the answer here that because I made a mistake in communication? )
I think that NSF Directors should be able to read a simple communication and understand what it does and does not mean, and respond accordingly. [1] Otherwise the distortion process starts at the very beginning, not because I made a mistake in communication but because of the assertions that NSF makes about the supremacy of the NSF to make judgments about all things “science”.
http://www.ontologystream.com/beads/nationalDebate/382.htm
This assertion is profound and evidenced in Drs Hirsh’s and Werbos’s communication to the Resilience Project. Is this not so?
As is clearly stated, the Resilience Project requires Congressional line item funding since the funding level is 2 - 10 B per year. The funding - if it is to be made available - will come from re-programming some part of an expenditure of around 70 B per year to e-Gov program IT consultants. The correspondence with members of Congress first focuses on Waste Fraud and Abuse considerations, related to the Bush Administration’s expenditures through the OMB and the CIO Council.
I make no assumption that the Resilience Project will be funded, I am only making the effort to define an alternative to something that seems not to be working. Paul (W), your past correspondence does seem to agree with the notion that "things are not working well" if the planet is to overcoming the many crisis and pending crisis. Yes?
The conferences that I have called for would go around the institutional science to attempt to vet viable alternatives that do not get funded by the agencies.
http://www.ontologystream.com/beads/nationalDebate/ResilienceProjectWhitePaper.htm
The historical perspective is that government funded science is making systemic errors and that these errors are correctable only if the authority of the institutions, NSF, NIST, DARPA, CIA, NSA etc; are successfully challenged.
The current Congressional hearing on the political pressure on climate change research is being seen as the tip of the ice burg. A full vetting of the proposal to create the Resilience Project may be required in order to make changes in how IT is funded. Once the infrastructure for communicating human to human and human to government is open and transparent (as called for in the original e-Gov program) we may find humanity in a new era.
The email to the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems was an attempt to start peer-to-peer discussions. The response, may seem to some as, assuming a master slave relationship both in how my communication was read and in the implicit communication that other NSF program managers should not be allowed to express their private opinions.
Paul Werbos’s explanation of the culture at NSF is revealing. Why should I adopt the language that he suggests:
"Golly, thanks much for
offering to discuss funding us but I didn't mean to be so presumptuous... it's
awfully nice of you, but all we really would like is a bit of your PDs time, to
have a joint discussion which we would like to arrange on the larger picture...
at the substantive technical level..."
The NSF response entirely misunderstood almost ever point of the clear, and short, communication I made.
http://www.ontologystream.com/beads/nationalDebate/382.htm
NSF is not in a position to fund the Resilience Project, it neither has the budget nor the culture. The issues are laid out in Penrose's and Rosen's work and others. These issues are responsible issues that have been set aside by a predominance of scientific reductionism particularly in the computational sciences.
My note was clear about many things and if read could NOT have been mistaken for a preliminary communication about NSF funding a conference. I was asking for the opinions of the program managers in one division of NSF. The purpose of asking for opinions was to get on record what the actual philosophical opinions are of those in this division. I attach a Power Point on NSF’s assertions regarding work being done at NSF on Semantic Web and Ontology research.
This PowerPoint seems to represent the dominant opinion at the CIO Council and uniformity in the government funded community. The alternative viewpoint is not represented and even acknowledged. My request to the nine program managers was to allow each of them to express opinions in regard to this issue.
My respond to the Speaker's Office is also clear that the conference would be funded by the Speaker's Office.
Paul (Werbos), this is not the direction that the discussion needs to go.
But if a personal criticism of my self is what must be talked about, perhaps other may see this as part of the climate in which I, and others, have had to endure over the past decades. Is this your concept of how science should be done?
Paul S Prueitt, PhD (Mathematics and Quantum Cognitive Neuroscience)
Note sent January 29th à [382]
January 30th reply from NSF à [383]
[1] Some one may look at what e-Gov was supposed to mean in 1996 when funding first started for a citizen centric interface to the NSF.