Nick, I apologize for misstating your position. My fault.
Frank On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 4:07 PM <[email protected]> wrote: > No, frank. Idon’t think that’s my position. If you want to make it as > extreme as the position you lay out, it should be that I can think your > thoughts as well as you can, not that you don’t have thoughts. > > > > Nick > > > > Nicholas Thompson > > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology > > Clark University > > [email protected] > > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ > > > > > > *From:* Friam <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly > *Sent:* Sunday, May 10, 2020 2:45 PM > *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < > [email protected]> > *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box > > > > Eric, > > > > Nick has said to me that "thought" is mentalist language and that I only > think I think. Note the paradox. Surely you've heard him deny the > existence of mental life and the private access that I (you) have to mine > (yours). I think it happened here recently. No one but me knows the > content of this message until i click "send" and they read it. > > > > Frank > > > > On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 2:35 PM Eric Charles < > [email protected]> wrote: > > Frank, > > So far as I can tell, no one is denying thought. I'm certainly not. There > are phenomenon at play, and one of the things that happens when you science > a phenomenon is that you end up with descriptions of the phenomenon (and > explanations for the phenomenon) that don't match mundane intuitions about > things,. We should expect that the science of psychology defines its > subject matter different from mundane intuitions in the same way that the > science of physics and the science of biology did for their respective > subject matters: Sometimes those definitions end up pretty close to the > mundane intuitions of a given era, other times you end up with definitions > that are radically different. > > > > In these contexts, I like to remind people how mindbogglingly unintuitive > Newtonian momentum is. When was the last time you moved an object and it > didn't come to rest? Aristotle's system is much more intuitive. > > > ----------- > > Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. > Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist > > American University - Adjunct Instructor > > > > > > On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 10:46 AM Frank Wimberly <[email protected]> > wrote: > > 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-comic.blogspot.com/ > > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > 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-comic.blogspot.com/ > > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > 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-comic.blogspot.com/ > > > > > -- > > Frank Wimberly > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > 505 670-9918 > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > 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-comic.blogspot.com/ > -- Frank Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918
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