Glen.... of course.... the next step in a discussion like this is for someone to ask you what evidence you have that any actual thing has more "actor status" than a thermostat. Answering this questions adequately requires 1) taking into account the complexity of what a thermostat accomplishes and 2) not pretending than everything people do is magically undetermined.
And... you have to avoid inter-defining "show's purpose" and "has actor status". If they are synonyms, then your claim that "the only objects capable of expressing purpose or tending toward a goal are those with actor status" doesn't help explain anything. Eric On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 10:29 AM, glen ropella <[email protected]> wrote: > On 09/15/2012 06:59 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> Wow! This Zombie thing is WAY more complicated than I thought it was. >> Although I haven't read any Kant first hand, I hear him lurking in the >> background. For me, a thermostat/furnace system is a telic system. It >acts >> in such a way as to maintain a set point. So do I, sometimes. Me and my >> furnace: we are telic systems. > >I disagree about the furnace, obviously. I could argue from the >dictionary, but I'll spare you that. ;-) How about if I launch the >argument from the concept of "stigmergy"? > >Any artifact, however intuitive it's interface, will be [mis-|ab-]used. > To boot, its use (proper or not) will produce side effects not >intended >by the designer. Hence, any artifact like your furnace doesn't >_express_ or _have_ a goal or purpose so much as one is ascribed to it >by observers. > >It's this perspective that allows me to enjoy graffiti, even gangster >tags, so much more than some people. I even enjoy some forms of >vandalism (though I can't bring myself to participate). A more benign >form of vandalism are the relatively new "unconferences" and things >like >collaborative fiction. Hell, even open-ended nonlinear games like grand >theft auto help demonstrate the (absence of) telos in artifacts. > >No, I maintain that the only objects capable of expressing purpose or >tending toward a goal are those with actor status, those identifiable >(but non-atomic) units who act as their own agents. Everything else >is >premature conclusion and wishful thinking on the part of some observer. > (Perhaps your furnace is not really a furnace! It just acts that way >when you're not around.) > >-- >glen =><= Hail Eris! > >============================================================ >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 > > > ------------ Eric Charles Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601
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