As I said to Nick approximately a dozen years ago, people who deny thought must not have it. I don't mean that as an insult. It's that for me thought is the one thing I can't deny because it's the first *experience* At that point Nick dismisses me as a Cartesian.
--- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Sun, May 10, 2020, 8:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[email protected]> wrote: > Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire > point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored > distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. > Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. > Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I > introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is > orthogonal to life. > > Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper > subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is > *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... > maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and > antennas fit right in. > > But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed > intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is > *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). > So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is > like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, > say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely > *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* > movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or > complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And > then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or > can't) be estimated solely from their I&O. > > We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the > complexity of I⇔O maps. > > On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote: > > Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made > between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would > argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. > Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is > descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the > behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can > be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately. > > [...] > > P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we > recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as > behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a > different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more > than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we > mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for > implications like those. > > > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> > http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
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