And to tie this into the other discussion:
The CDC is looking out for you:
http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies/#/page/1
Curt
On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 10:18 AM, Robert Holmes <rob...@robertholmes.org>wrote:
> You guys clearly know too much about philosophy and not enough about
> zombies. Your notion that there is a single type of zombie has long been
> discredited. Here's a handy chart that I hope can inform your discussion.
>
> http://www.geekologie.com/image.php?path=/2010/10/05/zombie-chart-full.jpg
>
> —R
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 7:59 AM, Nicholas Thompson <
> nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Glen,
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On
>> Behalf
>> Of glen ropella
>> Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2012 9:49 AM
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>> Subject: [FRIAM] faith, zombies, and crazy people (was America and the
>> Middle East: Murder in Libya | The Economist)
>>
>> On 09/14/2012 06:56 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>> > For me, consciousness is a point of view, and any telic system has a
>> > point of view. Zombies are telic systems, no?
>>
>> That's a great question. I would answer no. Zombies cannot be telic (as
>> I
>> understand that word, of course) because they are enslaved by their
>> context.
>> They are not ends in and of themselves. They are tools whose purpose has
>> been installed in them by some non-zombie actor.
>>
>> FWIW, the Rosenites would disagree with me. They'd claim that a zombie
>> (were such possible) would be an organism closed to efficient cause
>> (agency). From this, they claim such closure allows anticipation, which,
>> in
>> turn, allows final cause (purpose) ... all without any requirement for
>> _consciousness_ ... but with a requirement for reflective self-reference
>> (aka closure). Getting from reflection to consciousness might not be that
>> hard. And I support them in their quest. ;-) But they haven't proven the
>> closure to me. I believe we organisms are only partially closed (to any
>> of
>> the causes). Complete closure, in any of the causes, looks more like
>> death
>> to me. So, there's something missing from their framework ... to the
>> limited extent to which I understand it.
>>
>> Now, we might be able to reverse engineer a tool's purpose from its
>> attributes. And in that sense, a zombie might express a goal or purpose
>> and
>> be called "telic" ... but that purpose would not be its _own_.
>> Perhaps a tool is telic, but it's not autotelic.
>>
>> And this is where "faith" and "crazy" enter. When we can't reverse
>> engineer
>> a person's purpose ... or more accurately ... when we can't empathize ...
>> we
>> can't tell ourselves a story in which context their actions make sense,
>> then
>> they're "acting on faith" or they're crazy. It is this ability to
>> empathize
>> ... for your neurons to be stimulated similarly to your referent's by
>> observing their behavior ... that presents us with the zombie paradox. On
>> the one hand, telling a believable story turns you into a _machine_, a
>> tool,
>> without personal responsibility or accountability. ("My parents made me
>> this way!") But on the other hand, not telling a story makes you alien,
>> crazy, a wart that has to be removed.
>>
>> Interesting people walk that fine line between adequately explaining
>> themselves but leaving just enough craziness and mystery to preserve their
>> identity, to avoid being a zombie. I usually fail and am often accused of
>> being a tool. >8^)
>>
>> > Anyway, if you are curious, it's laid out in the conversation with the
>> > Devils Advocate on page 16 of the attached.
>> >
>> > Let me know what you think, if you have time to look at it.
>>
>> I will read it. Thanks. But in case it's not obvious, you must know
>> that I
>> don't take this stuff very seriously. I only think/talk about this stuff
>> to
>> distract me from work. ;-) So, it's unlikely that I'll be able to give
>> it
>> the attention that it and you deserve.
>>
>> --
>> glen =><= Hail Eris!
>>
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>>
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>>
>
>
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