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 ([email protected])
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...)
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