Russ,
I wasnt invited to answer this one, but... isnt your question incomplete? Isnt
knowledge always from a point of view?
"what about [you, me, he] knowing that the sun is out (assuming that it is)."
Professor Buttinski
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
----- Original Message -----
From: Russ Abbott
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 6/24/2009 8:45:22 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
Thanks, Eric. My question had to do with the (f)act of knowing anything rather
than what it is that is known. Your discussion has to do with knowing a mind
and the 1st vs 3rd person perspective. What about simply knowing that the sun
is out (assume it is) or that the sky is blue (assume you are under a cloudless
blue sky). From your perspective do you see a 1st/3rd person perspective when
the subject matter is not someone's mind?
-- Russ
On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 11:57 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[email protected]> wrote:
My understanding is that the terms 1st and 3rd person arose as ways of talking
about literary styles - and our use of them is metaphorical. An essential part
of the metaphor is that authors writing in 1st person are typically granted
privileged license to write about the mind of "I". In contrast, people writing
in (a non-omniscient) 3rd person, are typically not granted as much license to
write about the minds. This is not entirely true, as people writing in 3rd
person write about minds all the time, but their writings are considered more
vulnerable to dispute. For example, if Obama wrote an account of his
inauguration and said "I was terrified", it would be considered less vulnerable
to dispute than if I wrote an account of his inauguration and said "He was
terrified". If these linguistic conventions become reified then we can start
taking the "I" not merely to denote the speaker/viewer, but to denote an entity
in possession of unique powers that justify the privileges commonly granted to
the linguistic device. This is suggested as my understanding of the history,
independent of any value judgment regarding the reification.
There is a lurking problem, however, as these conventions do not always seem to
hold in the real world. The most glairing probelm is that, at least sometimes,
"I" can be wrong about my own mind and "He" can be right. (The cause of my
error can range from simply not paying attention to what I am doing, to
intentional self-delusion, to forgetting - think Alzheimer's.) For some, these
problems lead to an urge to collapse categories, to see if the oddness cannot
be gotten rid of if we leave behind the notion of uniqueness that goes with
having distinct labels. I suppose that on some formal level, when a dichotomy
collapses into a monism, it might not be particularly important which category
label remains. However, one category may be preferred over another because it
originally contained properties that the author wishes to retain as implicit or
explicit in the monistic system that remains. These properties are ported along
with word into the monistic system, because the term retains sway as a
metaphor.
In this case, the historical bias has been to retain only the "I" position. In
this move, the "I" retains its unique insight about ourselves, and any insight
we think we have about others must be treated purely as insight about
ourselves, i.e. the mind that I know as "their mind" is really just a sub-part
of my mind. This leads to extreme forms of idealism (where all the world exists
merely as an idea), the two mind problem (is it ever possible for two minds to
know the some object?), etc., etc. These were huge turn of the 20th century
challenges for philosophy, having grown out of a tradition of pushing more and
more extreme the distinguished lineage of ideas flowing from Descartes, Kant,
Berkeley, etc. The problems, for the most part, remain. In the extreme form, at
least, this lineage leads to a heavy intellectual paralysis, as it is not
possible for any "I" to know any other "I", nor to know the "real world"
(should such a thing even exist).
The alternative (assuming we are to retain one of the original labels), is to
have a bias for the "He" position. This leads to extreme forms of realism, and
often (but not always) to behaviorism. In this move, the "I" has to get its
information about the mind in the same that "He" has to get information. That
is, if my brother knows my mind by observing my behavior, then I can only know
my mind by observing my behavior. (Note, that the assertion about observing
behavior is a secondary postulate, supplimenting the fundamental assertion that
the method of knowing must be the same.)
There are, presumably, things that the I-biased position handles well (I don't
know what they are, but there must be some). I know there are things the
He-biased position handles well. Among other things it allows us to better
understand perfectly normal and mundane conversations such as:
A) "You are angry"
B) "No I'm not"
A) "Yes you are dear. I've known you long enough to know when you're angry."
B) "I think I'd know when I was angry"
A) "You usually don't dear"
... several hours later
B) "Wow, you were right, I was angry. I didn't realize it at the time. I'm
sorry"
The I-biased position understands these conversations as very elaborate shell
games, where the first statement means something like: "The you that is in my
head is currently being modeled by me as having a first-person experience of
anger which is itself modeled after my unique first-person experience of
anger". Worse, the last sentence seems (to me) totally incoherent from the
I-biased position. The He-biased position much more simply believes that a
person's anger is visible to himself and others if the right things are
attended to, and hence the conversation requires no shell game. Person B simply
comes to attend aspects of the situation that A was attending from the start.
Now I will admit that the He-biased perspective has trouble in some situations,
but those can't really be discussed until the position is at least understood
in the situations it handles well.
Eric
On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 04:05 AM, Russ Abbott <[email protected]> wrote:
Now that we've arrived safely in Canberra, here's my loose end.
A number of people have talked about 1st person vs 3rd person perspectives.
What I'd like to know is what you all mean by a 3rd person perspective. And
what I'd really like to know is why what you mean by a 3rd person perspective
isn't the
1st person experience of that perspective. In other words, what does one mean
by a perspective or view at all. If someone/something has a view, it's not
important (for what I think we're talking about) what the view is viewing.
What's important is that someone/something has that view. The viewer then has a
1st person perspective of whatever is being viewed. If what is being viewed has
something to do with the viewer, that's neither here nor there.
The more abstract way of saying this is that meaning occurs only in a first
person context. Without meaning, all we have are bits, photons, ink on paper,
etc. If you want to talk about meaning at all -- whether it's the meaning of a
first or third person perspective -- one has already assumed that there is a
first person that is understanding that meaning.
Now since Nick and I seem to have reached an agreement about our positions, I'm
not sure whether Nick will disagree with what I've just said. So, Nick, if you
are in agreement, please don't take this as a challenge. In fact, whether or
not you agree I think it would be interesting for others on the list to respond
to this point. On the other hand, Nick I'm not asking you not to respond -- in
agreement of disagreement. I'm always interested in what you have to say.
-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
Cell phone: 310-621-3805
o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/
On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<[email protected]> wrote:
Steve,
You asked
"How (if at all) does this fit into the 3rd/1st person discussion this all
started with?"
To be honest, I never tried to fit them together before. You are demanding
reflexivity here ... that my principles concerning how to conduct a discussion
be consistent with the argument I am presenting within the discussion. Always
a useful demand. The best I can say is that both seem to embody my belief that
in all matters of the mind, if we are willing to work hard enough, we can stand
shoulder to shoulder and look at the same thing.
By the way, a couple of you have indicated that you didn't get answers to
questions you directed at me, and you rose to my defense. I confess I got a
bit over whelmed there for a while and started selecting questions for answer
that I thought I could handle cleanly (as opposed to muddily). Please if there
were lose ends, push them at me again.
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: [email protected];The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Sent: 6/22/2009 10:13:50 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation
Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Russ, and Glen, and Steve, n all
Ironically, I am with Russ on this one! I believe both in the possibility and
the benefits of clarity.
I expected that when Russ and I were done, we would be able to agree on an
articulation of our positions, where they are similar, where different, etc.
In fact, one of the skills I most revere is the ability to state another
person's position to that person's satisfaction. And, in fact, at one point, I
thought I had achieved such an articulation, only to have Russ tell me I had
got it wrong. My guess is that Russ has his feet deeply in Kant, and I have
neither boots nor courage high enough to go in there after him. My son, who is
a philosopher, has as good as looked me in the eye and said, "You aint man
enough to read Kant!"
I studied Kant when I was too young and foolish to know better... but then I
had been raised on folks like Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein so Kant was no
challenge. Today I think I would find Kant a bit intimidating.
I am curious about the implications of "one of the skills I most revere is the
ability to state another person's position to that person's satisfaction". It
seems to have implications on the root discussion... The two ways I can
obtain a high degree of confidence that I am communicating with another is if I
can articulate their position to their satisfaction and vice versa... I
prefer the former over the latter... in the sense that I am almost never
satisfied in their articulation... at most I accept it with some reservations.
But if they can keep a straight face while I reel off my version of their
understanding of a point, then I try hard not to think too hard about it and
call it good. How (if at all) does this fit into the 3rd/1st person discussion
this all started with?
- Steve
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Complexity Group listservMeets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's
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Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================
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
