so, what does one behaviorist say to another after sex?
It was good for you, how was it for me?
:-)
tom
On Jun 14, 2009, at 11:19 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
Steve writes:
1) I don't understand what Nick means when he says :
I doubt that I am conscious and that my consciousness affects my acts.
I sympathize with the feeling, but I don't understand. In
particular who the "I" is who is doing the doubting and whether
"doubting" is a conscious act or not.
Nick replies: this is what it is to be trapped in a language game.
If you dont play the game nobody understands you, and if you do play
the game, everybody accuses you of being a hypocrite.
As I said to Jochen, I grant to myself all the powers I grant to any
creature. If you can see me, I can see me. If you can see me
doubting, then I can see me doubting. Everything a third person can
do, I do. Doubting is a conscious act if the behavior of the
doubter implies awareness of the doubting.
Like all behaviorists, I believe that first person perception is
just third person perception directed towards the self.
N
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Smith
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 6/14/2009 8:44:26 AM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The ghost in the machine (was 'quick question')
Jochen and Nick-
I don't have any answers on this one, but I do have a couple of
observations.
1) I don't understand what Nick means when he says :
I doubt that I am conscious and that my consciousness affects my acts.
I sympathize with the feeling, but I don't understand. In
particular who the "I" is who is doing the doubting and whether
"doubting" is a conscious act or not.
2) I appreciate Jochen's attempts to reduce the mystery of conscious
action into it's (perhaps) more tractable components, but somehow I
feel like you are cutting the head off of a Hydra in the process.
As a young child (<10 yrs) I would lie in the grass staring at the
clouds on lazy summer days until I felt compelled to get up and do
something else. At that point, the habit of laying and
contemplating would be deep enough that I would find myself in an
interesting "loop" of "deciding to get up, but not doing it. I
would (deliberately) think very hard about getting up yet would
never quite find the connection between the decision and the
action. I would deli berately search for the connection between the
conscious thought "I shall get up now"with the action "getting up"
and the very introspection would prevent the connection best I could
tell. It would get so "bad" that eventually I would have to play a
mental trick on myself and quit thinking about getting up. At that
point, I would simply "get up" and the loop would be broken.
This anecdote might explain why I am sympathetic with both Nick and
Jochen, yet am significantly unsatisfied with either discussion.
Carry on!
- Steve
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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============================================================
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
