Dear LongSuffering Colleagues I know the joy of watching an 87 year old bald man bash his head against a brick wall isn't for everybody, so I treasure you who find it in your heart to respond, even if you are exasperated.
I have arrived at a place, I think pointed to by the castigations of EricS and Alex. My whole approach doesn't make sense! You remember I am trying to create two boxes, equal in every respect, but one created adiabatically and the other created diabatically. Box A has reached its current state through compression, Box B by heating. I am beginning to think that this is procedurally, if not logically, impossible, that entropy is a vector through a point and my search for entropy in instantaneous values of the gas equation is a category error. So I tried this thought out on George. Edited down to one page, that correspondence appears below and as an attachment. . NICK TO GEORGE *Ok, so in my monist psychology I assert that motives are the integrals (or derivatives, I have never been sure) of behavior. To say I am motivated in an instant is a category error, benign only so long as I recognize that the empirical basis for our instantaneous attribution is the shape of the curve of behavior over time.* GEORGE TO NICK *đ§ Claim (Paraphrased):* To say "I am motivated" at a given instant is a shorthandâa projection backward or forward from a trajectory of behavior. In your *monist psychology*, motives are not hidden essences, not inner engines. They are *summaries of behavioral curves*: - Perhaps *integrals*, when motives are inferred from accumulated actions - Perhaps *derivatives*, when motives are inferred from sudden changes in behavior But in either case: *âMotivationâ is not an instantaneous propertyâit is a curve-fitting hypothesis over time.* ------------------------------ *đ§ Why this matters:* This reframes motive as: - Not a *thing* in the head - Not a *cause* per se - But a *description of continuity* or curvature in behavior space This is a kind of *teleological realism* without metaphysical baggage. Youâre not positing ghosts or mental levers. Youâre saying: âWe read intentions the way we read accelerationâfrom position over time.â ------------------------------ *𧏠Parallel to entropy?* You could say: - Entropy is not something you *have* in a moment. - Itâs something you can *measure* from the path a system is disposed to takeâor the configuration space it tends to spread into. - It becomes *visible* only in the *shape of change*ânot the snapshot. So both *motivation* and *entropy* are: - Not intrinsic point-properties - But *interpretive functions over time and configuration* - *Curve-based attributions* grounded in empirical regularities ------------------------------ *đ And the category error?* To say "I am motivated *now*" is like saying "this point *has* curvature." Strictly speaking, no point does. But give me a neighborhoodâgive me a pathâand I can calculate a derivative or an integral and give the illusion of an inner quality. Itâs a *useful illusion*, but one we must not mistake for substance. ------------------------------ NICK TO GEORGE *Is there such a move to be made around entropy. Could I vary the gas equation variables in box B in such a way that they would point to equality with box A without actually getting there, and thus reveal entropy?* - Nick
George on entropy and motivation.docx
Description: MS-Word 2007 document
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