Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
Nick - Half the never-ending hurt in this world seems to come from our thinking we know what other people's intentions are from their actions... Talk to me a bit about what an intention is to you, what an action is to you, and how they differ. A simple but profound (to me) example, I have already given. Lying in the grass on a lazy summer day intending to get up and not being able to actually acton the up-getting until I (that ever-present illusion of unique-selfness) quit intending and some other magical mechanism kicked in and viola! I am UP! But more to the point of this conversation. Let's say I intend to make an illuminating point in a discussion... say, this very thread, a few dozen messages ago... and I say I think we've just entered a recursion, and one of us (maybe many) (apparently) misunderstands that point as being snarky (I love that term!) and requests that I return to a more productive form of discourse. From my point of view, my actions were perfectly aligned with my intentions... I meant what I said and I said what I meant. But from the other party's point of view, I meant something entirely different with what I said. To all (but me), it could be said that my actions spoke, and everybody clearly understood my intentions (through my actions) to be disruptive. But I knew better. I know because the entity that my third-person observation point that is invariant under my intentional actions intended it that way. (yes, I am still trying on the concept that me is an observer of me which/whom only differs from others by POV). It is the question of mis-hearing vs mis-speaking and some nebulous middle ground. The speaker and the listener do not just have a responsibility to eachother to speak well/listen well, but there emerges (in some sense of the term, perhaps not the one usually used here) a life of the conversation of it's own, an ecosystem if you can stand the extravagant metaphor.This entire thread (and some of it's side-ravellings) is something of a good example for me... there are many threads of conversation, all superficially or tangentially relating to eachother, weaving in and out, but not necessarily tying neatly into a single explanation or understanding of a single or simple topic. This leads me 'round to James suggestion that we might not be defining our terms carefully enough. I admit to having indulged in bits of playfulness here, over and over. I believe that we are brainstorming as much as we are nailing things down in this discussion, and believe that such deserves a bit more play. But I also believe that the metaphor of nailing things down really misses some important points and by introducing a mixed metaphor, I hope to expand the conversation (I know, many here would prefer to narrow it, but presumably those are not even reading this). I feel that most of what goes on here on this list is that folks bring out nicely prepared foods for the rest of us to taste. We prepare something anywhere from a gourmet meal (long, well considered treatise) to a tasty but hastily prepared snack (a link to an article). Then we take turns tasting it and commenting on it, ranging from helpful suggestions (this is great, but a little more nutmeg would make it perfect) to veiled criticism (I've never had potato latkes made from turnips... perhaps they are called potato latkes for a good reason?) to serious advice... (Thanks for this offering, but I have a *much* better recipe, here... try this) to plain bluntness unto rudeness (what kinda garbage are you trying to pass off on us?). Now to mix the metaphor. I believe meaning is somewhere between a dustmote and thin jello. The only way I've ever been able to catch a dustmote flying in the air is to wait for it to enter good light, study it (and the air currents moving it) carefully, gently move my hand to a position many inches below it, carefully track it in it's (new) motions and with enough care and intuition my hand will be under the mote as it settles. Anything else and I'll be lucky to see it again (or distinguish it from it's many cohorts). To nail down jello... that is the trick. We here often bring out our favorite gelatin desserts and proceed to take turns trying to nail them to the table. Those who use tack hammers and fine brads and nails very carefully sometimes have a chance of getting the desserts to be a little more stable but many of us give over to the urge to use a 10 penny nail and a 5 pound sledge, or better yet a pneumatic nail-gun. I believe that the meaning in a page of writing is truly all between the lines and in a sentence between the words. It is the context (who is saying it where/when and to whom, after having said many other things) and the negative space (what is not said, what is implied but not spoken to, etc.). I think that Russ was righteously trying to get Nick to nail down a couple
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
An odd time of year to be talking about Valentine's Day Nicholas Thompson wrote: the following passage caught me eye: Half the never-ending hurt in this world seems to come from our thinking we know what other people's intentions are from their actions... Talk to me a bit about what an intention is to you, what an action is to you, and how they differ. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu mailto:nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/ - Original Message - *From:* Steve Smith mailto:sasm...@swcp.com *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com *Sent:* 6/21/2009 5:51:13 PM *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior I am way too animistic in my instincts to go for most of this. Eric said: /Nick's ethical stance would be based on treating things that act in certain ways as equal to all other things that act in certain ways, and it wouldn't get much more prescriptive than that. The acts he would be interested in would be very sophisticated actions, or combination of actions - such as contributing to the conversation. This may seem strange, but again, it is really, really, really, not that different from a stance that treats all things that experience in a certain way as equal. / Yes, I abhor the killing of people (but can think of circumstances when I would endorse or practice it) and by extension abhor (or at least get really queasy at) the killing of things that look anything like people. Apes and Monkeys are obvious candidates for the not-kill. Ditto for things that know how to mimic humans in any way... or have been selected for these traits (think most/all pets, many domesticated animals, etc.). And add in the things that tweak my parent feeling (all creatures exhibiting neotony, big eyes, large head/body ratios, etc.). Then add in the creatures who may not overtly (or recognizeably) remind me of humans (think Dolphins and other Cetaeceans... little gray creatures from UFO's, etc) that I intellectually (if not intuitively) ascribe intelligence and emotions. But I can feel the same way about cherished possessions or even coveted possessions of others. Who hasn't gone to the dump and wanted to pull that perfectly good armchair out of the pile of trash? I am particularly a sucker for machinery, electronic or otherwise. Just *try* to throw a perfectly good printer/computer/bicycle/chainsaw away in my presence. I have a boatload (technically a parking-lot-full) of cars that I fell in love with and had to rescue... most of them 20+ years old... and once you rescue them, you can never abandon them, and you can't even foster them out... after all, who is going to love them as much as you? And yes, they all drive... though I'm not so sure about the old tech in my shed (computers, printers, etc.) but I suspect they do... why not? OK... I'm sure this is totally off-topic... excepting that I claim that we *project* so much onto inanimate (or barely animate or animate but barely/hardly human) objects that surely we do the same with people? I don't trust people who claim they can determine my (or anyones) intentions by our actions... it is too fraught with the risk of projection. Half the never-ending hurt in this world seems to come from our thinking we know what other people's intentions are from their actions... and the other half seems to come from the resulting feedback loop of revenge. - Steve PS... I think it is OK to kill Nick, but there are many, many reasons I do not. Not the least of which is that I've become quite fond of him. So don't anyone else try killing Nick to make the point, I would take it personally, project onto you my own ideas of your motivations and seek revenge based on that projection. (OK... I know... I'm being disingenuous here...) FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
Nick, I'm still curious about your answer to a challenge you raised. You wrote, As one of my graduate students used to [cheerfully] say, but Nick, if youdon't have an inner life, it's ok to kill you, right? Now, my wisest response to this line of argument would be to go all technocratic and to deny that I have any ethical dog in this fight at all. One can, after all, be a moral naturalist and assert that reasoning and argument only come into play when people are trying to violate their ethical impulses and that, on the whole, people are designed by nature so that they don't kill each other. Just as I don't think it makes any difference whether you believe in evolution or creation whether you are a good person, I don't think it makes any difference to being a good person whether you believe others have an inner life or not. Thus, I escape the argument by asserting that it has no MORAL consequences. I reassure Russ that my absence of an inner life does not make me dangerous, and, once he takes that reassurance seriously, he doesn't have to kill me. Peace is re-established. It seems to m that you didn't answer your graduate student's challenge. Is it ok to kill you? The implication of the challenge is that murder is a moral issue only when it is performed on a being with an inner life. Simply terminating the functioning of something (like a robot) is not murder. We use the term murder when the thing murdered is understood to have an inner life like our own. It may be as you say that we have evolved to have that perspective. (I think that's correct.) But so what? Do you have any (moral) grounds for objecting to your graduate student killing you? Given your statement it has no MORAL consequences apparently your answer is that from your perspective there is no moral reason for him/her not to kill you. Is that correct? -- Russ On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 6:47 AM, Nicholas Thompson nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote: I have long felt that the Santa Fe group should find a way to gnash families. Let's do it. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/ [Original Message] From: Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com Date: 6/19/2009 11:11:50 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior Douglas Roberts wrote: Well, that certainly cleared things up! And the most fascinating thing (for the benefit for those who know neither I nor Doug personally) is that this was a wonderful illumination for me. Nothing conclusive, but nicely expansive (for me)... I think it is time for Doug and I (and our spouses) to break bread, share libations, and maybe even some fresh-roast, fresh ground coffee late into the night! ( I love/hate being a wide-awake drunk for 2 days straight thanks to Doug's killer Scotch followed by excellent Fresh-Fresh-Fresh Espresso) - Steve FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
Bringing something from a P.S. up to the front: Nick's ethical stance would be based on treating things that act in certain ways as equal to all other things that act in certain ways, and it wouldn't get much more prescriptive than that. The acts he would be interested in would be very sophisticated actions, or combination of actions - such as contributing to the conversation. This may seem strange, but again, it is really, really, really, not that different from a stance that treats all things that experience in a certain way as equal. To elaborate that, it cannot be the case, pragmatically speaking, that we let other people live because they have an inner life. We all know this cannot be true (Russ included), because one of the axiomatic assumptions for these conversations is that you cannot directly know someone else's mental life. If you cannot know whether or not someone has a mental life, you can't decide whether or not you can kill them based on their having a mental life. Is there any way to make that more obvious?!? The way this is problem is normally dealt with is for people to say that we can gain insight into people's mental lives by observing their behavior. The logic goes 1) we see people act a certain way, 2) we infer that they have a mental life, 3) we decide that we cannot kill them (barring them being jerks or believing in the wrong god). Now, the irony of a dualistic philosophy is in step 2, where their inner life somehow comes to be entirely in our heads, not in theirs! Its crazy talk. Philosophers have spent millennia trying to connect steps 2 and 3, and getting no where. Much better to just look at the part of the equation that is actually observable, steps 1 and 3 - the relation between the actions and the ethical decision. When you do that, you see that we aren't allowed to kill people who act in certain ways. That's what its always been, despite all the smoke and mirrors created by point 2. The obvious, but totally unasked, empirical question is What are the ways that people act that distinguish whether or not we can kill them. We just don't need to talk about inner lives at all to have that conversation. We just don't! The same applies to all sub-categories of interest. We judge someone a murder based on some aspect of their actions and the circumstances within which the actions took place. Period. It cannot be that we judge them a murder based on their inner-mind. Thus, while Nick's position does have something to say about the form of rules in moral systems (i.e., that they relate behavior to consequences), it does not have implications for what the content of the rules should be. In that sense, it IS morally neutral. Whether or not people have inner-lives has never, at any point, effected ethics in practice. Certainly Nick could elaborate his own moral views, by suggesting some rules, but that is completely tangential to this point. This may seem terribly abstract, but it is not to be taken lightly. Judge Posner (appellate judge for the Federal 7th Circuit) has an excellent book, and quite a lot of legal precedence arguing that talk of an inner mental life adds nothing to law, and in fact seriously detracts from it. Here are two quotes from him: Obviously most adults and older children can and do speak without vocalization (that is, can conceal their thoughts) and form mental images. But this barebones concept of mind, which essentially equates mind to consciousness, is different from the idea that there is a something, the mind, which is the locus of intentions, the invisible puppeteer, the inner man or woman. It is that idea which may have no consequences for law and should perhaps be discarded, despite the law's emphatic... commitment to it. Our understanding of the mind may improve - maybe we will learn to read minds. But maybe there is nothing to read, or maybe we are not interested in what the murderer was thinking when he pulled the trigger. If we take seriously the actor's adage that no man is a villain in his own eyes, we can expect to find, if we ever succeed in peering into the murderer's mind, an elaborate, perhaps quite plausible, rationalization for his deed. But so what? We would punish him all the same. Eric On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 01:49 PM, Russ Abbott russ.abb...@gmail.com wrote: Nick, I'm still curious about your answer to a challenge you raised. You wrote, As one of my graduate students used to [cheerfully] say, but Nick, if you don't have an inner life, it's ok to kill you, right? Now, my wisest response to this line of argument would be to go all technocratic and to deny that I have any ethical dog in this fight at all. One can, after all, be a moral naturalist and assert that reasoning and argument only come into play when people are trying to violate their ethical impulses and that, on the whole, people are designed by nature so that they don't kill each other. Just as I don't think it makes any difference whether
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
the following passage caught me eye: Half the never-ending hurt in this world seems to come from our thinking we know what other people's intentions are from their actions... Talk to me a bit about what an intention is to you, what an action is to you, and how they differ. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ - Original Message - From: Steve Smith To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 6/21/2009 5:51:13 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior I am way too animistic in my instincts to go for most of this. Eric said: Nick's ethical stance would be based on treating things that act in certain ways as equal to all other things that act in certain ways, and it wouldn't get much more prescriptive than that. The acts he would be interested in would be very sophisticated actions, or combination of actions - such as contributing to the conversation. This may seem strange, but again, it is really, really, really, not that different from a stance that treats all things that experience in a certain way as equal. Yes, I abhor the killing of people (but can think of circumstances when I would endorse or practice it) and by extension abhor (or at least get really queasy at) the killing of things that look anything like people. Apes and Monkeys are obvious candidates for the not-kill. Ditto for things that know how to mimic humans in any way... or have been selected for these traits (think most/all pets, many domesticated animals, etc.). And add in the things that tweak my parent feeling (all creatures exhibiting neotony, big eyes, large head/body ratios, etc.). Then add in the creatures who may not overtly (or recognizeably) remind me of humans (think Dolphins and other Cetaeceans... little gray creatures from UFO's, etc) that I intellectually (if not intuitively) ascribe intelligence and emotions. But I can feel the same way about cherished possessions or even coveted possessions of others. Who hasn't gone to the dump and wanted to pull that perfectly good armchair out of the pile of trash? I am particularly a sucker for machinery, electronic or otherwise. Just *try* to throw a perfectly good printer/computer/bicycle/chainsaw away in my presence. I have a boatload (technically a parking-lot-full) of cars that I fell in love with and had to rescue... most of them 20+ years old... and once you rescue them, you can never abandon them, and you can't even foster them out... after all, who is going to love them as much as you? And yes, they all drive... though I'm not so sure about the old tech in my shed (computers, printers, etc.) but I suspect they do... why not? OK... I'm sure this is totally off-topic... excepting that I claim that we *project* so much onto inanimate (or barely animate or animate but barely/hardly human) objects that surely we do the same with people? I don't trust people who claim they can determine my (or anyones) intentions by our actions... it is too fraught with the risk of projection. Half the never-ending hurt in this world seems to come from our thinking we know what other people's intentions are from their actions... and the other half seems to come from the resulting feedback loop of revenge. - Steve PS... I think it is OK to kill Nick, but there are many, many reasons I do not. Not the least of which is that I've become quite fond of him. So don't anyone else try killing Nick to make the point, I would take it personally, project onto you my own ideas of your motivations and seek revenge based on that projection. (OK... I know... I'm being disingenuous here...) FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
James Steiner wrote: On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: What is odd about this whole interchange is that I can't quite find the point of view (all experience is 3rd person) Nick is promoting, but it feels that it could very well be my own habit of experience and language. What if everything Nick was saying was true (about the absense of true 1st person) , but only for Nick, and other's like him for whom behaviorist ideas make sense? What if, for Nick, there really is no there, there (or a "me" here), but the idea doesn't make sense to others, because there is a "me" there... (I'm sure this idea has been stated before, and it's distracting nonsense, but I don't have much else to contribute, and I didn't think it'd be right to just post, "mumble, mumble" so I could pretend I was participating) ~~James. All I can think to say about now is "mumble, mumble"! grin - Steve FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
I have long felt that the Santa Fe group should find a way to gnash families. Let's do it. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ [Original Message] From: Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com Date: 6/19/2009 11:11:50 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior Douglas Roberts wrote: Well, that certainly cleared things up! And the most fascinating thing (for the benefit for those who know neither I nor Doug personally) is that this was a wonderful illumination for me. Nothing conclusive, but nicely expansive (for me)... I think it is time for Doug and I (and our spouses) to break bread, share libations, and maybe even some fresh-roast, fresh ground coffee late into the night! ( I love/hate being a wide-awake drunk for 2 days straight thanks to Doug's killer Scotch followed by excellent Fresh-Fresh-Fresh Espresso) - Steve FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
Nick and I are on opposite sides of the consciousness debate. I think there is an inner mind and that I experience it. Nick rejects statements not made from the third person perspective. Perhaps the debate suffers from a feeling that if we take Nick's third person view, we are not allowed to use metaphorical statements that suggest an inner mind. But clearly we can say The computer had an illusion or a breakdown etc. to describe behavior. (e.g. The behavior was as we imagined it would be if the computer had a inner mind which suffered a breakdown.) Moreover, not only can these metaphorical statements about behavior be defined rigorously, but we can formulate and test rules about how they are related. We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. That is why we should not casually make such accusations nor assume they will be without negative consequences even if there is no inner mind. From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott [russ.abb...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:07 PM To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net Cc: friam@redfish.com; e...@psu.edu Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior Nick wrote: To call a man dishonest (my word, I admit, but you have embraced it) is very harsh in my world, and seems (to me) to require a level of certainty about another person's motives that I just don't know how you could come by from your limited experience with me. ... You are insisting on the correctness of your view of my mind based on inferences from my behavior. Yes, I'm doing exactly that, judging you on the basis of your behavior -- in this conversation. (The past 40 years aren't relevant to that.) Your position in this discussion seems to be that your behavior is all there is. So why are you objecting that I'm doing it? Furthermore, your objection seems to be that I don't know what your motives are. I'm not sure what you mean by motives in this case. I'm not assuming any particular motive. In fact I'm confused about what your motives might be and why you are acting so dishonestly. Yet you are acting dishonestly. To review: a good example of your dishonest behavior was your answer to my question about nausea. Your provided a very nice first person description of what it means to feel nauseous. If you say that you are feeling nauseous i will understand that your world seems like it is churning around but that your visual cues do not confirm (i.e., you are dizzy) and that your stomach feels the way it does when on previous occasions you have thrown up. Note your use of the first person words seems and feels. But then you refused to answer whether that description would ever apply to a robot. Instead you offered a 3rd person description of what it looks like to feel nauseous and said that of course a robot could fit that description. I call that dishonest. You know what a first person description means because you used it yourself. But then you refused to answer the question whether such a first person description could apply to a robot. Furthermore, you refused to acknowledge that this is what you were doing. I see that as dishonest. But I don't know what your motives for acting this way might be. Besides, why are you so concerned about my characterizing your behavior as dishonest? Why is that a very harsh term? It's simply a description of your behavior. Are you upset because you are taking my use of the term dishonest to apply more broadly than to your behavior? In the second passage of yours quoted above, you talked about my view of your mind. Are you unhappy that I seem to be implying that your mind is dishonest? I thought your position was that there is no mind for me to have a view of. I thought your position was that behavior was all that mattered. It should not matter to you what my view of your mind is if it doesn't mean anything to talk about minds. -- Russ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
As I wrote to Nick directly, I think Nick is gracious and kind and a man of great integrity. But this doesn't make sense to me: We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. What could it possibly mean to say that a person is deeply hurt if there is no such thing as first person experience? And if there is no such thing as being deeply hurt in a first person way, what could it possibly mean to say that someone is behaving as if deeply hurt? This suggests that it is very dangerous to claim that there is no first person experience and that observable behavior is all there is. It would encourage treating people as objects because that's exactly the position it takes. An attitude of this sort would seem to discard millennia of progress in our understanding and acceptance of what ethical human-to-human interaction consists of. -- Russ On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 7:40 AM, John Kennison jkenni...@clarku.edu wrote: Nick and I are on opposite sides of the consciousness debate. I think there is an inner mind and that I experience it. Nick rejects statements not made from the third person perspective. Perhaps the debate suffers from a feeling that if we take Nick's third person view, we are not allowed to use metaphorical statements that suggest an inner mind. But clearly we can say The computer had an illusion or a breakdown etc. to describe behavior. (e.g. The behavior was as we imagined it would be if the computer had a inner mind which suffered a breakdown.) Moreover, not only can these metaphorical statements about behavior be defined rigorously, but we can formulate and test rules about how they are related. We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. That is why we should not casually make such accusations nor assume they will be without negative consequences even if there is no inner mind. From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott [russ.abb...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:07 PM To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net Cc: friam@redfish.com; e...@psu.edu Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior Nick wrote: To call a man dishonest (my word, I admit, but you have embraced it) is very harsh in my world, and seems (to me) to require a level of certainty about another person's motives that I just don't know how you could come by from your limited experience with me. ... You are insisting on the correctness of your view of my mind based on inferences from my behavior. Yes, I'm doing exactly that, judging you on the basis of your behavior -- in this conversation. (The past 40 years aren't relevant to that.) Your position in this discussion seems to be that your behavior is all there is. So why are you objecting that I'm doing it? Furthermore, your objection seems to be that I don't know what your motives are. I'm not sure what you mean by motives in this case. I'm not assuming any particular motive. In fact I'm confused about what your motives might be and why you are acting so dishonestly. Yet you are acting dishonestly. To review: a good example of your dishonest behavior was your answer to my question about nausea. Your provided a very nice first person description of what it means to feel nauseous. If you say that you are feeling nauseous i will understand that your world seems like it is churning around but that your visual cues do not confirm (i.e., you are dizzy) and that your stomach feels the way it does when on previous occasions you have thrown up. Note your use of the first person words seems and feels. But then you refused to answer whether that description would ever apply to a robot. Instead you offered a 3rd person description of what it looks like to feel nauseous and said that of course a robot could fit that description. I call that dishonest. You know what a first person description means because you used it yourself. But then you refused to answer the question whether such a first person description could apply to a robot. Furthermore, you refused to acknowledge that this is what you were doing. I see that as dishonest. But I don't know what your motives for acting this way might be. Besides, why are you so concerned about my characterizing your behavior as dishonest? Why is that a very harsh term? It's simply a description of your behavior. Are you upset because you are taking my use of the term dishonest to apply more broadly than to your behavior? In the second passage of yours quoted above, you talked about my view of your mind. Are you unhappy that I seem to be implying that your mind is dishonest? I thought your position was that there is no mind for me to have a view of. I thought your position was that behavior was all that mattered. It should not matter to you what my view of your
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
Steve, Please dont criticize; help. If we are circling, summarize the positions. Locate points of agreement. Isolate remaining issues. Build! Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ [Original Message] From: Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com Date: 6/18/2009 10:13:40 PM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior I think we've started recursion here. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
I've watched this particular verbal volleyball match for over a week now, and I must confess: I don't have the faintest idea what the objective of the exercise is. What I have noticed, however, is repeated usage of words that apparently have deep, overloaded, special meanings to their author, but not to the audience. Experience conscious suffers from, for example. Could someone please tell me what the fuss is all about? Succinctly? Why are you all apparently agonizing over whether a robot can feel nauseous? TIA (which stands for Thanks, In Advance) --Doug -- Doug Roberts drobe...@rti.org d...@parrot-farm.net 505-455-7333 - Office 505-670-8195 - Cell On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 8:57 AM, Russ Abbott russ.abb...@gmail.com wrote: As I wrote to Nick directly, I think Nick is gracious and kind and a man of great integrity. But this doesn't make sense to me: We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. What could it possibly mean to say that a person is deeply hurt if there is no such thing as first person experience? And if there is no such thing as being deeply hurt in a first person way, what could it possibly mean to say that someone is behaving as if deeply hurt? This suggests that it is very dangerous to claim that there is no first person experience and that observable behavior is all there is. It would encourage treating people as objects because that's exactly the position it takes. An attitude of this sort would seem to discard millennia of progress in our understanding and acceptance of what ethical human-to-human interaction consists of. -- Russ On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 7:40 AM, John Kennison jkenni...@clarku.eduwrote: Nick and I are on opposite sides of the consciousness debate. I think there is an inner mind and that I experience it. Nick rejects statements not made from the third person perspective. Perhaps the debate suffers from a feeling that if we take Nick's third person view, we are not allowed to use metaphorical statements that suggest an inner mind. But clearly we can say The computer had an illusion or a breakdown etc. to describe behavior. (e.g. The behavior was as we imagined it would be if the computer had a inner mind which suffered a breakdown.) Moreover, not only can these metaphorical statements about behavior be defined rigorously, but we can formulate and test rules about how they are related. We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. That is why we should not casually make such accusations nor assume they will be without negative consequences even if there is no inner mind. From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott [russ.abb...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:07 PM To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net Cc: friam@redfish.com; e...@psu.edu Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior Nick wrote: To call a man dishonest (my word, I admit, but you have embraced it) is very harsh in my world, and seems (to me) to require a level of certainty about another person's motives that I just don't know how you could come by from your limited experience with me. ... You are insisting on the correctness of your view of my mind based on inferences from my behavior. Yes, I'm doing exactly that, judging you on the basis of your behavior -- in this conversation. (The past 40 years aren't relevant to that.) Your position in this discussion seems to be that your behavior is all there is. So why are you objecting that I'm doing it? Furthermore, your objection seems to be that I don't know what your motives are. I'm not sure what you mean by motives in this case. I'm not assuming any particular motive. In fact I'm confused about what your motives might be and why you are acting so dishonestly. Yet you are acting dishonestly. To review: a good example of your dishonest behavior was your answer to my question about nausea. Your provided a very nice first person description of what it means to feel nauseous. If you say that you are feeling nauseous i will understand that your world seems like it is churning around but that your visual cues do not confirm (i.e., you are dizzy) and that your stomach feels the way it does when on previous occasions you have thrown up. Note your use of the first person words seems and feels. But then you refused to answer whether that description would ever apply to a robot. Instead you offered a 3rd person description of what it looks like to feel nauseous and said that of course a robot could fit that description. I call that dishonest. You know what a first person description means because you used it yourself. But then you refused to answer the question whether such a first person description could apply to a robot. Furthermore, you refused
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
John, You may be in trouble,here, because I absolutely agree with what you are saying. In fact, I believe, that the first job of the child is to parse the outer world into two subworlds, one that moves with me and one that moves with respect to me. Immediately, parents start assigning names and meanings to those two worlds, including the robust metaphysics of the inner and the outer. (Do as I say, not as I do; this hurts me more than it does you, etc.) Out of such trivial hypocricies is built the inner world. So, by the time we are 18, we have learned to say to our girlfriends, But DEAR I REALLY love YOU! and other manipulative nonsense. The inner world is a cognitive model designed to serve the interests of a unitary body. You are quite right that seeing the world in this way has serious consequences, and if you detect some moralizing lurking behind my position, you are also right. thanks, Nick [Original Message] From: John Kennison jkenni...@clarku.edu To: russ.abb...@gmail.com russ.abb...@gmail.com; The Friday MorningApplied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com; nickthomp...@earthlink.net nickthomp...@earthlink.net Cc: e...@psu.edu e...@psu.edu Date: 6/19/2009 8:40:53 AM Subject: RE: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior Nick and I are on opposite sides of the consciousness debate. I think there is an inner mind and that I experience it. Nick rejects statements not made from the third person perspective. Perhaps the debate suffers from a feeling that if we take Nick's third person view, we are not allowed to use metaphorical statements that suggest an inner mind. But clearly we can say The computer had an illusion or a breakdown etc. to describe behavior. (e.g. The behavior was as we imagined it would be if the computer had a inner mind which suffered a breakdown.) Moreover, not only can these metaphorical statements about behavior be defined rigorously, but we can formulate and test rules about how they are related. We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. That is why we should not casually make such accusations nor assume they will be without negative consequences even if there is no inner mind. From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott [russ.abb...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:07 PM To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net Cc: friam@redfish.com; e...@psu.edu Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior Nick wrote: To call a man dishonest (my word, I admit, but you have embraced it) is very harsh in my world, and seems (to me) to require a level of certainty about another person's motives that I just don't know how you could come by from your limited experience with me. ... You are insisting on the correctness of your view of my mind based on inferences from my behavior. Yes, I'm doing exactly that, judging you on the basis of your behavior -- in this conversation. (The past 40 years aren't relevant to that.) Your position in this discussion seems to be that your behavior is all there is. So why are you objecting that I'm doing it? Furthermore, your objection seems to be that I don't know what your motives are. I'm not sure what you mean by motives in this case. I'm not assuming any particular motive. In fact I'm confused about what your motives might be and why you are acting so dishonestly. Yet you are acting dishonestly. To review: a good example of your dishonest behavior was your answer to my question about nausea. Your provided a very nice first person description of what it means to feel nauseous. If you say that you are feeling nauseous i will understand that your world seems like it is churning around but that your visual cues do not confirm (i.e., you are dizzy) and that your stomach feels the way it does when on previous occasions you have thrown up. Note your use of the first person words seems and feels. But then you refused to answer whether that description would ever apply to a robot. Instead you offered a 3rd person description of what it looks like to feel nauseous and said that of course a robot could fit that description. I call that dishonest. You know what a first person description means because you used it yourself. But then you refused to answer the question whether such a first person description could apply to a robot. Furthermore, you refused to acknowledge that this is what you were doing. I see that as dishonest. But I don't know what your motives for acting this way might be. Besides, why are you so concerned about my characterizing your behavior as dishonest? Why is that a very harsh term? It's simply a description of your behavior. Are you upset because you are taking my use of the term dishonest to apply more broadly than to your behavior? In the second passage of yours quoted above, you talked about my view of your mind. Are you unhappy
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
What is odd about this whole interchange is that I can't quite find the point of view (all experience is 3rd person) Nick is promoting, but it feels that it could very well be my own habit of experience and language. This is not to say that I believe the 3rd person thing is real or literally true, but I do find it interesting and am surprised how hard it is for me to think about it. I can see how Russ might feel that Nick's (lack of?) response to the discussion is disingenuous (I'm not quite as sure about dishonest) but my knowledge of Nick does not support that as a likely mode of relationship for him. My own use of dishonest includes an intention to mislead which I do not believe Nick is engaging in. I don't think Nick's description of 1st person experience as 3rd person experience from a unique perspective denies the existence of the self which is what I think Russ is getting at. It just changes how the self is experienced by the self (if I understand this correctly). - Steve As I wrote to Nick directly, I think Nick is gracious and kind and a man of great integrity. But this doesn't make sense to me: We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. What could it possibly mean to say that a person is deeply hurt if there is no such thing as first person experience? And if there is no such thing as being deeply hurt in a first person way, what could it possibly mean to say that someone is behaving as if deeply hurt? This suggests that it is very dangerous to claim that there is no first person experience and that observable behavior is all there is. It would encourage treating people as objects because that's exactly the position it takes. An attitude of this sort would seem to discard millennia of progress in our understanding and acceptance of what ethical human-to-human interaction consists of. -- Russ On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 7:40 AM, John Kennison jkenni...@clarku.edu mailto:jkenni...@clarku.edu wrote: Nick and I are on opposite sides of the consciousness debate. I think there is an inner mind and that I experience it. Nick rejects statements not made from the third person perspective. Perhaps the debate suffers from a feeling that if we take Nick's third person view, we are not allowed to use metaphorical statements that suggest an inner mind. But clearly we can say The computer had an illusion or a breakdown etc. to describe behavior. (e.g. The behavior was as we imagined it would be if the computer had a inner mind which suffered a breakdown.) Moreover, not only can these metaphorical statements about behavior be defined rigorously, but we can formulate and test rules about how they are related. We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. That is why we should not casually make such accusations nor assume they will be without negative consequences even if there is no inner mind. From: friam-boun...@redfish.com mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com [friam-boun...@redfish.com mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott [russ.abb...@gmail.com mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:07 PM To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net Cc: friam@redfish.com mailto:friam@redfish.com; e...@psu.edu mailto:e...@psu.edu Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior Nick wrote: To call a man dishonest (my word, I admit, but you have embraced it) is very harsh in my world, and seems (to me) to require a level of certainty about another person's motives that I just don't know how you could come by from your limited experience with me. ... You are insisting on the correctness of your view of my mind based on inferences from my behavior. Yes, I'm doing exactly that, judging you on the basis of your behavior -- in this conversation. (The past 40 years aren't relevant to that.) Your position in this discussion seems to be that your behavior is all there is. So why are you objecting that I'm doing it? Furthermore, your objection seems to be that I don't know what your motives are. I'm not sure what you mean by motives in this case. I'm not assuming any particular motive. In fact I'm confused about what your motives might be and why you are acting so dishonestly. Yet you are acting dishonestly. To review: a good example of your dishonest behavior was your answer to my question about nausea. Your provided a very nice first person description of what it means to feel nauseous. If you say that you are feeling nauseous i will understand that your world seems like it is churning around but that your visual cues do not confirm (i.e., you
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: What is odd about this whole interchange is that I can't quite find the point of view (all experience is 3rd person) Nick is promoting, but it feels that it could very well be my own habit of experience and language. What if everything Nick was saying was true (about the absense of true 1st person) , but only for Nick, and other's like him for whom behaviorist ideas make sense? What if, for Nick, there really is no there, there (or a me here), but the idea doesn't make sense to others, because there is a me there... (I'm sure this idea has been stated before, and it's distracting nonsense, but I don't have much else to contribute, and I didn't think it'd be right to just post, mumble, mumble so I could pretend I was participating) ~~James. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
emergence always stray into discussions about consciousness because, for many, the origin's of consciousness in the brain is the only truly interesting example of emergence. But I think the most interesting examples of emergence are the most prosaic ones. I would like to see us get back to the emergent properties of ... triangles. I would like to see us build an error-free language for talking about simple forms of emergence ... triangles, gliders, etc. -- so that we can have some confidence and discipline the next time we get together to talk complexity babble face to face. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ - Original Message - From: Russ Abbott To: John Kennison Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; nickthomp...@earthlink.net; e...@psu.edu Sent: 6/19/2009 8:58:14 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior As I wrote to Nick directly, I think Nick is gracious and kind and a man of great integrity. But this doesn't make sense to me: We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. What could it possibly mean to say that a person is deeply hurt if there is no such thing as first person experience? And if there is no such thing as being deeply hurt in a first person way, what could it possibly mean to say that someone is behaving as if deeply hurt? This suggests that it is very dangerous to claim that there is no first person experience and that observable behavior is all there is. It would encourage treating people as objects because that's exactly the position it takes. An attitude of this sort would seem to discard millennia of progress in our understanding and acceptance of what ethical human-to-human interaction consists of. -- Russ On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 7:40 AM, John Kennison jkenni...@clarku.edu wrote: Nick and I are on opposite sides of the consciousness debate. I think there is an inner mind and that I experience it. Nick rejects statements not made from the third person perspective. Perhaps the debate suffers from a feeling that if we take Nick's third person view, we are not allowed to use metaphorical statements that suggest an inner mind. But clearly we can say The computer had an illusion or a breakdown etc. to describe behavior. (e.g. The behavior was as we imagined it would be if the computer had a inner mind which suffered a breakdown.) Moreover, not only can these metaphorical statements about behavior be defined rigorously, but we can formulate and test rules about how they are related. We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. That is why we should not casually make such accusations nor assume they will be without negative consequences even if there is no inner mind. From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott [russ.abb...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:07 PM To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net Cc: friam@redfish.com; e...@psu.edu Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior Nick wrote: To call a man dishonest (my word, I admit, but you have embraced it) is very harsh in my world, and seems (to me) to require a level of certainty about another person's motives that I just don't know how you could come by from your limited experience with me. ... You are insisting on the correctness of your view of my mind based on inferences from my behavior. Yes, I'm doing exactly that, judging you on the basis of your behavior -- in this conversation. (The past 40 years aren't relevant to that.) Your position in this discussion seems to be that your behavior is all there is. So why are you objecting that I'm doing it? Furthermore, your objection seems to be that I don't know what your motives are. I'm not sure what you mean by motives in this case. I'm not assuming any particular motive. In fact I'm confused about what your motives might be and why you are acting so dishonestly. Yet you are acting dishonestly. To review: a good example of your dishonest behavior was your answer to my question about nausea. Your provided a very nice first person description of what it means to feel nauseous. If you say that you are feeling nauseous i will understand that your world seems like it is churning around but that your visual cues do not confirm (i.e., you are dizzy) and that your stomach feels the way it does when on previous occasions you have thrown up. Note your use of the first person words seems and feels. But then you refused to answer whether that description would ever apply to a robot. Instead you offered a 3rd person description of what it looks like to feel nauseous and said that of course a robot could fit
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
this as a detailed, matter-of-fact, discussion of self-reference in control systems. (2) What about emergence? Discussions concerning emergence always stray into discussions about consciousness because, for many, the origin's of consciousness in the brain is the only truly interesting example of emergence. But I think the most interesting examples of emergence are the most prosaic ones. I would like to see us get back to the emergent properties of ... triangles. I would like to see us build an error-free language for talking about simple forms of emergence ... triangles, gliders, etc. -- so that we can have some confidence and discipline the next time we get together to talk complexity babble face to face. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/ - Original Message - *From:* Russ Abbott russ.abb...@gmail.com *To: *John Kennison jkenni...@clarku.edu *Cc: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com; nickthomp...@earthlink.net; e...@psu.edu *Sent:* 6/19/2009 8:58:14 AM *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior As I wrote to Nick directly, I think Nick is gracious and kind and a man of great integrity. But this doesn't make sense to me: We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. What could it possibly mean to say that a person is deeply hurt if there is no such thing as first person experience? And if there is no such thing as being deeply hurt in a first person way, what could it possibly mean to say that someone is behaving as if deeply hurt? This suggests that it is very dangerous to claim that there is no first person experience and that observable behavior is all there is. It would encourage treating people as objects because that's exactly the position it takes. An attitude of this sort would seem to discard millennia of progress in our understanding and acceptance of what ethical human-to-human interaction consists of. -- Russ On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 7:40 AM, John Kennison jkenni...@clarku.eduwrote: Nick and I are on opposite sides of the consciousness debate. I think there is an inner mind and that I experience it. Nick rejects statements not made from the third person perspective. Perhaps the debate suffers from a feeling that if we take Nick's third person view, we are not allowed to use metaphorical statements that suggest an inner mind. But clearly we can say The computer had an illusion or a breakdown etc. to describe behavior. (e.g. The behavior was as we imagined it would be if the computer had a inner mind which suffered a breakdown.) Moreover, not only can these metaphorical statements about behavior be defined rigorously, but we can formulate and test rules about how they are related. We don't have to believe in inner minds to say that a person accused of dishonesty behaves as if deeply hurt. That is why we should not casually make such accusations nor assume they will be without negative consequences even if there is no inner mind. From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott [russ.abb...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 11:07 PM To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net Cc: friam@redfish.com; e...@psu.edu Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior Nick wrote: To call a man dishonest (my word, I admit, but you have embraced it) is very harsh in my world, and seems (to me) to require a level of certainty about another person's motives that I just don't know how you could come by from your limited experience with me. ... You are insisting on the correctness of your view of my mind based on inferences from my behavior. Yes, I'm doing exactly that, judging you on the basis of your behavior -- in this conversation. (The past 40 years aren't relevant to that.) Your position in this discussion seems to be that your behavior is all there is. So why are you objecting that I'm doing it? Furthermore, your objection seems to be that I don't know what your motives are. I'm not sure what you mean by motives in this case. I'm not assuming any particular motive. In fact I'm confused about what your motives might be and why you are acting so dishonestly. Yet you are acting dishonestly. To review: a good example of your dishonest behavior was your answer to my question about nausea. Your provided a very nice first person description of what it means to feel nauseous. If you say that you are feeling nauseous i will understand that your world seems like it is churning around but that your visual cues do not confirm (i.e., you are dizzy) and that your stomach feels the way it does when on previous occasions you have thrown
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
James, thanks for your input. You are correct that I have only claimed so far that it is true of me, but Russ is right that as soon as I have gotten Le Monde to claim that it is true of me, that it is true of EVERYBODY, even you. So, IF his ethical premises are correct, his concern for my humanity is well founded. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ - Original Message - From: James Steiner To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Sent: 6/19/2009 11:04:45 AM Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote: What is odd about this whole interchange is that I can't quite find the point of view (all experience is 3rd person) Nick is promoting, but it feels that it could very well be my own habit of experience and language. What if everything Nick was saying was true (about the absense of true 1st person) , but only for Nick, and other's like him for whom behaviorist ideas make sense? What if, for Nick, there really is no there, there (or a me here), but the idea doesn't make sense to others, because there is a me there... (I'm sure this idea has been stated before, and it's distracting nonsense, but I don't have much else to contribute, and I didn't think it'd be right to just post, mumble, mumble so I could pretend I was participating) ~~James. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
For some reason, I am assuming that those were ironic squiggles.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
- Original Message -
From: Douglas Roberts
To: nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Cc: russ.abb...@gmail.com; John Kennison; e...@psu.edu
Sent: 6/19/2009 11:46:47 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
Well, that certainly cleared things up!
;-} ;-{
On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 11:33 AM, Nicholas Thompson
nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote:
Dear Doug and List,
I hope it is clear to everybody by now that Nick is a philosophical example.
He was borrowed for this purpose because the best discussions are reflexive ...
i.e, they become examples of themselves. Doug and Nick (the real one, this
time) fell into a paradox. He is arguing that I falsify my own mind when I say
that I dont understand expressions like I feel nauseous. I am arguing that
he doesnt know what he is saying when he uses them. Notice the paradox: if
Nick is right, then Russ is right; if Russ is right, then Nick is right.
You are correct to demand that we call a truce on this discussion for long
enough to clarify why anybody should give a damn.
Part of the purported importance has just become clear in Russ's most recent
message. He feels that ethical behavior necessitates our respecting the
sanctity of the inner life of others. To respect the inner life of others one
must first embrace one's own, and so my statement that I dont have an inner
life begins to feel like an attack on the most central of moral principles.
As one of my graduate students used to [cheerfully] say, but Nick, if you
don't have an inner life, it's ok to kill you, right?
Now, my wisest response to this line of argument would be to go all
technocratic and to deny that I have any ethical dog in this fight at all.
One can, after all, be a moral naturalist and assert that reasoning and
argument only come into play when people are trying to violate their ethical
impulses and that, on the whole, people are designed by nature so that they
dont kill each other. Just as I dont think it makes any difference whether you
believe in evolution or creation whether you are a good person, I dont think it
makes any difference to being a good person whether you believe others have an
inner life or not. Thus, I escape the argument by asserting that it has no
MORAL consequences. I reassure Russ that my absense of an inner life does not
make me dangerous, and, once he takes that reassurance seriously, he doesnt
have to kill me. Peace is re-established.
But we behaviorists are fierce (if covert) moralists. Just read Skinner's
Walden II. We deplore the metaphysics of the inner life because we think of it
as a way of thinking that encourages people to act badly while claiming good
intentions. Now it will become clear to you why I have tolerated the
conversation about my honesty, or, more accurately Nick's honesty : because
I am holding a similar judgment behind my back like a mailed fist. The
function of the inner life view (in evolutionary history) has been to promote
dishonesty!
Animal behaviorists from time to time have tried to serve as expert witnesses
in the societal debate concerning who you can kill (or enslave, or whatever).
I regard my colleagues participation in this argument as akin to that of the
psychologists who consulted in the CIA torture techniques. One of my best
collegial friends -- bless his heart -- wrote an essay entitled Does octopus
suffer ? and came to the conclusion that well, perhaps, yes, but nothing LESS
than octopus could possibly feel pain. Therefore you can dissect a cockroach
with impunity, right? Well, anybody who has stuck a needle in a cockroach
knows they dont like it. So, any attempt to draw a line between creatures that
suffer and those that dont strikes me as casuistry of the worst sort.And
people who object to clubbing a cow over the head but who will happily eat a
salmon that has suffocated in the hold of a boat under a pile of his own kind
seems to me to be ... well, kidding himself.
In short, I Russ thinks people would be better if they believed in the inner
life; I think people would be better people if they didnt.
This is probably where the argument should stop, because I dont see any way to
resolve it. I am overjoyed if The People have come to understand that The
Inner Life is a way to think, not the way things are. Russ will have to speak
for himself, but I guess he will be more or less satisfied if we understand
that The Inner Life is fundamental to what we are as humans. We will just have
to hold those contradictory thoughts in our minds and move on to issues we can
resolve.
Two places where I would like to see this discussion
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
Do you mean 'assuming', or assuming?
--Doug
On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Nicholas Thompson
nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote:
For some reason, I am assuming that those were ironic squiggles.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University (nthomp...@clarku.edu)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/
- Original Message -
*From:* Douglas Roberts d...@parrot-farm.net
*To: *nickthomp...@earthlink.net;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group friam@redfish.com *Cc: *russ.abb...@gmail.com; John
Kennison jkenni...@clarku.edu; e...@psu.edu
*Sent:* 6/19/2009 11:46:47 AM
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
Well, that certainly cleared things up!
;-} ;-{
On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 11:33 AM, Nicholas Thompson
nickthomp...@earthlink.net wrote:
Dear Doug and List,
I hope it is clear to everybody by now that Nick is a philosophical
example. He was borrowed for this purpose because the best discussions are
reflexive ... i.e, they become examples of themselves. Doug and Nick (the
real one, this time) fell into a paradox. He is arguing that I falsify my
own mind when I say that I dont understand expressions like I feel
nauseous. I am arguing that he doesnt know what he is saying when he uses
them. Notice the paradox: if Nick is right, then Russ is right; if
Russ is right, then Nick is right. You are correct to demand that we call
a truce on this discussion for long enough to clarify why anybody should
give a damn.
Part of the purported importance has just become clear in Russ's most
recent message. He feels that ethical behavior necessitates our respecting
the sanctity of the inner life of others. To respect the inner life of
others one must first embrace one's own, and so my statement that I dont
have an inner life begins to feel like an attack on the most central of
moral principles. As one of my graduate students used to [cheerfully] say,
but Nick, if you don't have an inner life, it's ok to kill you, right?
Now, my wisest response to this line of argument would be to go all
technocratic and to deny that I have any ethical dog in this fight at
all. One can, after all, be a moral naturalist and assert that reasoning
and argument only come into play when people are trying to violate their
ethical impulses and that, on the whole, people are designed by nature so
that they dont kill each other. Just as I dont think it makes any
difference whether you believe in evolution or creation whether you are a
good person, I dont think it makes any difference to being a good person
whether you believe others have an inner life or not. Thus, I escape the
argument by asserting that it has no MORAL consequences. I reassure Russ
that my absense of an inner life does not make me dangerous, and, once he
takes that reassurance seriously, he doesnt have to kill me. Peace is
re-established.
But we behaviorists are fierce (if covert) moralists. Just read
Skinner's Walden II. We deplore the metaphysics of the inner life because
we think of it as a way of thinking that encourages people to act badly
while claiming good intentions. Now it will become clear to you why I have
tolerated the conversation about my honesty, or, more accurately Nick's
honesty : because I am holding a similar judgment behind my back like a
mailed fist. *The function of the inner life view (in evolutionary
history) has been to promote dishonesty! *
Animal behaviorists from time to time have tried to serve as expert
witnesses in the societal debate concerning who you can kill (or enslave, or
whatever). I regard my colleagues participation in this argument as akin to
that of the psychologists who consulted in the CIA torture techniques. One
of my best collegial friends -- bless his heart -- wrote an essay entitled
Does octopus suffer ? and came to the conclusion that well, perhaps, yes,
but nothing LESS than octopus could possibly feel pain. Therefore you can
dissect a cockroach with impunity, right? Well, anybody who has stuck a
needle in a cockroach knows they dont like it. So, any attempt to draw a
line between creatures that suffer and those that dont strikes me as
casuistry of the worst sort.And people who object to clubbing a cow over
the head but who will happily eat a salmon that has suffocated in the hold
of a boat under a pile of his own kind seems to me to be ... well, kidding
himself.
In short, I Russ thinks people would be better if they believed in the
inner life; I think people would be better people if they didnt.
This is probably where the argument should stop, because I dont see any
way to resolve it. I am overjoyed if The People have come to understand
that The Inner Life is a way to think, not the way things are. Russ will
have to speak for himself, but I guess he
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
Douglas Roberts wrote: Well, that certainly cleared things up! And the most fascinating thing (for the benefit for those who know neither I nor Doug personally) is that this was a wonderful illumination for me. Nothing conclusive, but nicely expansive (for me)... I think it is time for Doug and I (and our spouses) to break bread, share libations, and maybe even some fresh-roast, fresh ground coffee late into the night! ( I love/hate being a wide-awake drunk for 2 days straight thanks to Doug's killer Scotch followed by excellent Fresh-Fresh-Fresh Espresso) - Steve FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
Nick wrote: * To call a man dishonest (my word, I admit, but you have embraced it) is very harsh in my world, and seems (to me) to require a level of certainty about another person's motives that I just don't know how you could come by from your limited experience with me. ...* *You are insisting on the correctness of your view of my mind based on inferences from my behavior. * ** * **Yes, I'm doing exactly that, judging you on the basis of your behavior -- in this conversation. (The past 40 years aren't relevant to that.) Your position in this discussion seems to be that **your behavior is all there is. **So why are you objecting that I'm doing it? Furthermore, your objection seems to be that I don't know what your motives are. I'm not sure what you mean by motives in this case. I'm not assuming any particular motive. In fact I'm confused about what your motives might be and why you are acting so dishonestly. Yet you are acting dishonestly. To review: a good example of your dishonest behavior was your answer to my question about nausea. Your provided a very nice first person description of what it means to feel nauseous. * ***If you say that you are feeling nauseous i will understand that your world seems like it is churning around but that your visual cues do not confirm (i.e., you are dizzy) and that your stomach feels the way it does when on previous occasions you have thrown up.** * ** * Note your use of the first person words seems and feels. But then you refused to answer whether that description would ever apply to a robot. Instead you offered a 3rd person description of what it looks like to feel nauseous and said that of course a robot could fit that description. I call that dishonest. You know what a first person description means because you used it yourself. But then you refused to answer the question whether such a first person description could apply to a robot. Furthermore, you refused to acknowledge that this is what you were doing. I see that as dishonest. But I don't know what your motives for acting this way might be. Besides, why are you so concerned about my characterizing your behavior as dishonest? Why is that a very harsh term? It's simply a description of your behavior. Are you upset because you are taking my use of the term dishonest to apply more broadly than to your behavior? In the second passage of yours quoted above, you talked about my view of your mind. Are you unhappy that I seem to be implying that your mind is dishonest? I thought your position was that there is no mind for me to have a view of. I thought your position was that behavior was all that mattered. It should not matter to you what my view of your mind is if it doesn't mean anything to talk about minds.* ** -- Russ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
I think we've started recursion here. FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
