>From SA, on Dec. 23:
"Exactly! I've tried this before. This is what I
mean by 'woods'. The woods are an experience that
includes me, my wife, the deer, my son, cities,
woodpeckers - it is the ecosystem approach. Some took
this as raw biological, but I notice wits, I notice
intellect working in the woods. When I walk in the
woods, I don't leave my intellect at the house. I
bring it with me. How does intellect relate to the
woods? This is an original question of life. How
does any component relate to anything? I'm glad this
is being brought back up."
SA: about the ecosystems approach you mention above: I am also of the
opinion that such an approach may be used to get a better understanding of
experiences. Starting from Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind, the approach
has proved to be very fruitful in tackling a number of mental processes. I
wouldn't worry too much about the approach being too "raw biological".
True, Ecology is a branch of Biology and its main concern is 'raw'
biological systems, but this doesn't mean, IMO, that we cannot take the
peculiar way of thinking of ecologists out of Biology and apply it to other,
seemingly unrelated, subjects. If 'ecological thinking' has acquired a sort
dubious reputation among scientist it's mainly because it has been used too
lightly by people with scarce knowledge of the discipline. I'd venture to say
that this has been mostly due to some people's forgetting that it's just an
approach, a tool if you want and confusing models with what something might
really be. As someone wittily remarked the problem with loose 'ecological
thinking' is akin to the chap that drives-in a nail with a hammer and comes to
think that the hammer is the cause of the nail getting into the wood. As long
as we don't forget that the hammer is just a convenient tool, as is the
ecosystems approach as applied to Mind, it may prove helpful in our
understanding
of varied processes.
Some years ago I became (tangentially) involved with something called
Ecosystems Analysis (the application of Systems Analysis to eco-systems. Not
that I learned much of it by I acquired a tremendous respect for that
discipline and its practitioners. Those fellows would take a slab of Nature
that included hundreds of components and variables and would proceed to
formulate models that could be as close to 'the real thing' as was
mathematically feasible. As opposed to what is normally done in other
disciplines, that is to select a few variables and keep the rest constant,
they try to retain the maximum number of variables consistent with a
quantitative analysis of the system.
What mental states or process, such as a music experience we are
examining here, may have in common with the above is that their description (
description: a step to understanding) entails a vast number of components that
interact among themselves through an even large number of variables and
corresponding functions. The approach of selecting one or two and assuming for
the rest "all other things being equal", has resulted so far in an extremely
poor understanding of what might be going on in our mind.
I hope you won't mind if I comment on the other part of your post in a
following one.
---------------------------------
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