Needing more time to think through Rikus's excellent challenge, I'll try to see
if I can address Steve's concerns.
First, Steve's comments seem an perfectly good and coherent example of trying
to collapse the dualism into an I-biased monism. The collapse is embodied in
the conceit that "I" might merely be a model in my head, the same way "you" are
a model in my head. Such a conceit places one only a hair-line away from crazy
everything-that-exists-is-imagined idealism. That isn't necessarily bad, its
just not my preferred brand of crazy.
Second, I think any reasonable observation of human behavior shows that most
people "know themselves" poorly, and that is a major rub. How often has someone
told you something like "stop tapping your fingers!" and you said, "oh, I
didn't even realize I was doing that". How often are you really aware,
consciously, in that qualitative manner, of every obstacle you avoid when
navigating through a crowded room. How often have you flinched away from an
oncoming object before you really had any idea what it was? How often have you
done something, then wondered "now why did I just do that"? If I prime you with
pictures of Osama ben Laden on posters as you enter a room full of job
applicants, you ("you" being a typical research participant) will rate the
clearly Arab applicant lower than if not primed, and you (typically) will not
remember the having seen the poster if I ask. Similarly, without priming, the
typical participant can be shown to have quite a few biases they are not aware
of (some of the experiments are quite ingenious). How often are you frustrated,
but you don't really understand what you are frustrated about until sometime
later? Have you ever found that you drove half-way to work while daydreaming
and were surprised to find out where you were. How often are you surprised to
find out how much a piece of news upset you? In those circumstances, has it
ever been the case that the person delivering the news guessed your reaction
level better? Have you ever thought you could handle more projects
simultaneously than was really the case? Have you ever demonstrated how to do
something and then not quite been able to explain what you did (cooking,
sports, intuitive math)? ... ... ...
Third, only a small part of not-knowing-yourself can possibly be of the highly
intellectual intentional-self-delusion variety Steve is willing to concede. As
is hopefully obvious from the above examples, most of it has to be of the
non-intellectual varieties that includes not paying attention, not remembering,
not caring, or not knowing what to make of the things you are doing . As we are
currently being visited by elders, I have been sensitized to the variety made
obvious by the question "What was I doing again?" Though most such events are
initiated by the elders, I am increasingly sensitive to its frequency both for
myself and other medium aged people around me. In most such cases, if a third
party was watching, they can easy tell the confused person what they were in
the middle of intending. If the normal usage of this language is to be taken
seriously, the request in for someone else to tell me the state that my mind is
(or was just) in.
Fourth, no matter which bias you prefer, the 1st person perspective is
potentially privileged in at least the following ways: You are around yourself
more than I am. You can detect things about yourself that, while not in
principle undetectable by me, I cannot typically detect in practice (internal
temperature, a swelling bladder, etc.). At any given moment in time you have at
least a slightly unique perspective on the happenings around you. -- Also, no
matter which bias you prefer, there is no guarantee that the person with the
1st person perspective is taking advantage of said potential.
Fifth, perhaps as a surprise, I full agree that the position I am advocating
for is dreadfully confusing and frustrating. You attribute that to its being
incoherent, or obviously wrong. I attribute the confusion and frustration to
every one's having so much more practice and familiarity with other options.
Regardless, I assert that the New Realist position is fully compatible with,
and a fair representation of our natural use of language. Where it most clearly
differs is in regards to typical explanations of our natural language.
Did any of that help... or at least address the questions and concerns?
Eric
P.S. Alas, studies of infant development are unhelpful in this regards. The
majority of researchers surely interpret their results along traditional lines,
but in fact their evidence is not be the type capable of distinguishing between
the two positions. Most infant liturature is very poorly conceived, and the
really nice stuff is typically dealing with other issues.
On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 12:12 PM, Steve Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>Rikus -
>
>
>Nicely stirred.
>
>
>This is a very well articulated example of why I am
>confused/offended/confounded when people talk about someone else
>knowing my intentions (or experience) better than I do. In most cases,
>it would seem to be simply absurd.
>
>
>There are some cases where I am self-deluded, allowing myself to
>rationalize an explanation for my own feelings or behaviour which is
>not real, but rather conveniently fits some agenda or self-image I am
>trying to maintain. Once I have reached that level of sophistication
>in my self-delusion, I acquiesce to Nick's ideas/references about
>psychotherapy... I believe that trained professionals can be of help in
>untangling these tangles of self-misdirection and self-delusion. But
>for normal, everyday experience and perception... we can and do "know
>ourselves" quite well.
>
>
>Otherwise, I cannot imagine how anyone else would believe they
>understand my experience or feelings or intentions better than I do.
>And I mean this qualitatively... they simply cannot know any of it
>except through their own "model" of who they think I am and what they
>think my actions imply about that model.
>
>
>I believe that Nick's original position about our 1st person experience
>being qualitatively the same as our 3rd person experience excepting the
>specific POV we have (seeing/hearing/feeling through our own sensory
>apparatus) might reduce to saying that our own "self-knowledge" is
>*also* based on evaluating a "model" of ourselves in an identical
>fashion to the model we have of others, excepting that our
>evidence/data for our own model has the unique qualities of being
>situated from a specific point of view, being pervasive (we observe
>ourselves continuously but others only now and then), and by being
>informed directly by our own biochemical state (emotional) and only
>minimally (pheremones?) by others'.
>
>
>So... even if I accept Nick's hypothesis that our 1st person experience
>is essentially the same as our 3rd person except for POV.... I say the
>POV is high dimensional (6DOF geometry, direct access to our own
>sensory apparatus, biochemical, etc.). In the abstract, the
>differences might be considered to be "small" but in the
>real/practical/physical, these are huge differences yielding a
>qualitatively distinct difference between "self" and "other".
>
>
>Perhaps studies of infant development lead us to other beliefs (the
>observation of babies "discovering" their own hand belongs to their own
>will after seeing it enter and leave their field of view, etc.). Does
>someone have more background on this stage of development and it's
>presumed implications?
>
>
>- Steve
>
>
>>Eric (and Nick),
> >
> >I'm still pursuing clarity.
>Kindly consider the following:
>
> >
>Person A, a high-school
>student, is asked by a teacher (B) to solve a maths problem on the
>board in front of the class. Among the other students is person C, a
>close friend of A. A is
>taking an unusually long time to solve the problem, frequently erasing
>partial calculations, now and then pausing to stare at the board with a
>frown.
>
> >
> >B is a new teacher and has
>only interacted with A a few times. It appears to him that the problem
>is simply too much for A, and starts forming an idea about A's math
>skills.
> >
> >C knows that A is good at
>maths and that the problem on the board should really not be difficult
>for him. He also knows A well enough to recognise that the frown A
>exhibits means something is bothering him. Things between A and his
>girlfriend are a bit shaky lately and he wonders if it took a turn for
>the worse.
> >
> >A has a really bad
>headache. He very rarely gets headaches, but woke up this morning with
>a monster. He hates giving up on math problems, though, and is sure he
>should be able to solve this one. Also, he suspects the new teacher
>thinks he isn't very good at maths and he wants to correct that
>impression. And he just realised he forgot to do biology homework and
>is trying to recall which period biology is.
>
> >Can you please
>comment:
> >
> >1. I understand you
>to say that A is an observer of A in much the same way as B and C.
>You're *not* saying A is not having an experience of A, only that A's
>experience is not *privileged* compared to B and C. Does that mean you
>consider A's experience to be qualitatively indistinguishable from that
>of B and C, or only that the difference in the quality of A's
>experience, compared to that of B and C, is not of consequence?
> >
> >2. Obvious A can think a
>great many things that B and C can't know anything about. He can
>access memory about himself that B and C cannot. He has access to
>interoceptive sensory information that B and C does not. He has the
>experience of directly influencing the mathematical symbols in his
>working memory, outside the perception or direct influence of B and C.
>On the other hand, B and C has access to some exteroceptive sensory
>information about A that A lacks. Do you consider these various kinds
>of information and experiences to be entirely interchangeable?
> >
> >
> >3. Do you distinguish between
>"experience" and "have information about"?
>
> >
> >4. When you say that A's
>point of view is not privileged, do you consider anything beyond the
>ability to identify motives and intent, gauge current emotional
>state, and identify habitual patterns of behaviour?
> >
> >5. We can extend the example and allow A to spontaneously start
>hallucinating a swarm of hand-sized pterodactyls that are attacking
>him. His body and mind responds to the perceived threat like it would
>to a real one. In some sense he really is having the experience, yet,
>B and C would deny that it is taking place. What exactly does it mean
>to be "wrong" about one's own experience?
> >
> >Regards,
> >Rikus
> >
>
> >
> >
>From: <a moz-do-not-send="" title="" href="">ERIC P. CHARLES</a>
> >
>Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 8:57 PM
> >
>To: <a moz-do-not-send="" title="" href="">[email protected]</a>
> >
>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd
>person
>
> >
>
> >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
>
>
>
>
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>
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>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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>
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
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