Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Tom - Maybe you’re overthinking this topic. I think that's a given! - Steve To quote Bucky Fuller: “Today the world is my backyard. ‘Where do you live?’ and ‘What are you?’ are progressively less sensible questions. I live on earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

. > >> -----Original Message- > >> From: Friam On Behalf Of glen > >> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 9:26 AM > >> To: friam@redfish.com > >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories > >> Excellent! I appreciate your clarification

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Maybe you’re overthinking this topic. To quote Bucky Fuller: “Today the world is my backyard. ‘Where do you live?’ and ‘What are you?’ are progressively less sensible questions. I live on earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing—a noun. I seem

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

The Martians would be experiencing the animals without the lens of human categories. I guess the question is, Would they even come up with the category of experience. I think they would because, as Nicholas Thompson said in his excellent article in WIRED magazine, every biological system respond

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Excellent! I appreciate your clarification as to why it might be useful to explore. I will do so. I'm still a bit confused as to why you mentioned it in the context of me claiming that "the bot" (e.g. ChatGPT) has a body. I think I was ignoring that bit of context entirely...   however "all

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

I would be astonished if Dave just meant a different point of view. -Original Message- From: Friam On Behalf Of glen Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 11:33 AM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories If by "dualism", you mean Cartesianism, I agree. H

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

lf Of glen Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 10:17 AM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories My 1st reaction was "none" - there's no evidence that differing substrates is insufficient to account for differing mental things. That's "supervenience

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

hallucinations. I fail to see how dualism offers any explanatory power. -Original Message- From: Friam On Behalf Of glen Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 10:17 AM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories My 1st reaction was "none" - there's no evi

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

is the "mental" any different from a computer program or a set of neural net edge weights generalized to different (analog) architectures. -Original Message----- From: Friam On Behalf Of glen Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 9:26 AM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categori

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

-Original Message----- >> From: Friam On Behalf Of glen >> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 9:26 AM >> To: friam@redfish.com >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories >> Excellent! I appreciate your clarification as to why it might be useful to >> e

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

over something. How is the "mental" any different from a computer program or a set of neural net edge weights generalized to different (analog) architectures. -Original Message- From: Friam On Behalf Of glen Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 9:26 AM To: friam@redfish.co

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories Excellent! I appreciate your clarification as to why it might be useful to explore. I will do so. I'm still a bit confused as to why you mentioned it in the context of me claiming that "the bot" (e.g. ChatGPT)

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Excellent! I appreciate your clarification as to why it might be useful to explore. I will do so. I'm still a bit confused as to why you mentioned it in the context of me claiming that "the bot" (e.g. ChatGPT) has a body. Or the context of claiming some forms of panpsychism are monist. Maybe I'

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Good question. Sorry if I made it seem like using "mental" as a name for an equivalence class is bad. I don't intend to say it's bad. I do intend to assert that most people (in my experience) who use the term do mean to distinguish between mind and body. And that would be OK *if* they gave some

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Glen - Attempting a balance between succinctness and completeness/contextualization/relevance I offer the following excerpt from Rączaszek‑Leonardi's essay about 3 pages into the 7-page work: /One important implication of the proposed scenario for the emergence of autogen is that in the

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Steve, Deacon's three dynamics in your image directly map to Stu's three processes around constraint processes for Autonomous Agents (living system) in Investigations (2000). - detect gradients - construct constraints to extract work from gradients - do work to maintain those constraints Here's a

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Glen - FWIW,  I'm still chewing on your assertions of 5 months ago which referenced Christian List's "Levels" and the points he made (and you reinforced) on Indexicality and first/third person descriptions  *because* they tie in to my own twisty turny

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

> On Feb 20, 2023, at 10:46 AM, glen wrote: > > By even using the phrases "mental stuff" or "mental life", *you* are > implicitly asserting there are 2 things: mental and non-mental. There is no > such difference, in my opinion. Now, while I am often a moron, I don't deny > that people *thin

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

want to acknowledge Glen’s formulation here, too, which is helpful and seems both reasonable to the point, and specific enough to explain why Mind and not just-any essentialism. It’s interesting: I know just what people mean when they talk this way about computing’s universality (so, like Seth

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Thank you Dave, It’s helpful to have this comparative analysis, of what different doctrinal streams of thought consider central to their system and the worldview (or world-experience) it enables in the participants in that system. A couple of weeks ago, there was a seminar in Princeton, https

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

being stalked > by it, the bot declaring and persuing his enternal love. Now, a lot of > audiobits are spilled on explaining how the bot could have managed such a > conversation without any body considering the possibility that the techy's > probing triggered the interven

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

[sigh] But the whole point of knowing other people is so that they can make your own work more efficient or effective. While I appreciate the *citation* of tomes, to some extent, citation isn't really useful for construction of a concept. It's only useful for auditing constructs. So, rather tha

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

As the discussion evolves: But the bot *does* have a body. It just doesn't take the same form as a human body. I disagree re: panpsychism revolving around "interest" or "intention" ... or even "acting". It's more about accumulation and the tendency of cumulative objects to accumulate (and di

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

at human was teasing the living shit out of the techy.  A reverse Turing Test? Nick -Original Message----- From: Friam On Behalf Of glen Sent: Monday, February 20, 2023 8:46 AM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories Despite the ambiguity both Nick and DaveW rely

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

-Original Message- From: Friam On Behalf Of glen Sent: Monday, February 20, 2023 8:46 AM To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories Despite the ambiguity both Nick and DaveW rely on when they use the word "dualism", the "psyche"

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

That's unfortunate. I'm trying to say that any 1 thing has nothing in common with any other thing. But we shouldn't be too hard on people who are tricked by abstraction into believing in nonsense like "communication" or "morphic resonance". But maybe I'm not as familiar with Sheldrake's other i

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

I am hearing echoes of Rubert Sheldrake in your last sentence davew On Mon, Feb 20, 2023, at 8:46 AM, glen wrote: > Despite the ambiguity both Nick and DaveW rely on when they use the > word "dualism", the "psyche" in panpsychism need not be dualist. > Experience monism is a kind of panpsychis

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Despite the ambiguity both Nick and DaveW rely on when they use the word "dualism", the "psyche" in panpsychism need not be dualist. Experience monism is a kind of panpsychism. When I asserted that there is something that it is like to be dirt, I'm not implying there is a difference between "ps

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

While I appreciate DaveW's historical ensconcing, I think there's a different answer to EricS' question. When/if I feel generous to people who talk about the mind and thinking, I liken it to computation, in the trans-computer sense of portability ... the idea that you can run the same computati

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Great question, and one that may not be answerable directly. There is definitely a sense of essentialism in some contexts, Shinto for example, and other forms of animism. In Vedic philosophy I am less sure. The origin myth states that Mind (purusa) and Matter (prakrti) were once separate and apa

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

So there are things in DaveW’s very helpful post below about which I am genuinely curious. My tendency is to analyze them, though I have a certain habitual fear that asking a question in an analytic mode will come across as somehow disrespectful, and that is not my intent. The description belo

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Isn’t it a problem that if we lobotomize Dave, he’s no longer Dave? From: Friam On Behalf Of Eric Charles Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2023 5:30 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories I don't know what you mean by "me

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Panpsychism is fundamentally dualist. There is 'Mind" and there is 'Matter'. However, neither is found in isolation, Mind is always embedded in Matter and all Matter possesses Mind. This is a proportionate relation: very tiny bits of Matter (string, particle) embed very minute "auras" of matter.

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

I don't know what you mean by "mental stuff", of course. Well... In this context, I mean whatever the "psyche" part of panpsychism entails. Given that I don't believe in disembodied minds, I'm with you 100% on everything you do being "body stuff". Which, presumably, leads to the empirical questio

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Based on my experience, if you tell a Mexican that you changed your mind in Spanish (me cambié la mente) they say, "you can't change your mind you can only change your opinion/intention/etc." --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Fri, Feb 17,

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Just to follow up: Human cortical representations for reaching: mirror neurons for execution, observation, and imagery https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2045689/ Functional anatomy of execution, mental simulation, observation, and verb generation of actions: A meta‐analysis https://

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

On 2/17/23 11:39 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: Our family rule was, "Don't name anything  you aren't ready to take to the vet." if by vet you mean "repairman" or "carwash/detailer" then I agree... I anthropomorphize *some* vehicles and when I take them to the mechanic I do it with a similar f

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Our family rule was, "Don't name anything you aren't ready to take to the vet." On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 10:47 AM Steve Smith wrote: > This may be something of a "punt" but I tripped over an essay on BCS's > OOO a few weeks ago and I've been wanting to introduce it into the > conversation. I wo

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Great find. Thanks. I will read that. I'm a bit worried how you went from "trampled dirt" to a "pile of trampled dirt". This is the target of DaveW's first question of composition and structure. "Dirt" is a mass noun, whereas a "pile of dirt" is not. Mass nouns like "data" are interesting, I thi

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

This may be something of a "punt" but I tripped over an essay on BCS's OOO a few weeks ago and I've been wanting to introduce it into the conversation.  I wonder if the gap in the metaphysical fundament that we (don't) share might be bridged by some of BCS's ideas about "what means object anywa

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Interesting. I never claimed I can "feel what it is like to be trampled dirt". I merely asserted there is something that it is like to be trampled dirt. I have no sympathy or empathy for dirt whatsoever, trampled or otherwise. I can't be like trampled dirt or feel what it is like to be trampled

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Yes, I have experienced the "mental life" of the dirt at my feet (or rough equivalent). It is rather boring, given that the amount/degree of "psych" possessed by your average soil molecule is diminutive in the extreme. But the"psych" is there and it can be "sensed/perceived." At somewhat greate

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

As absurd as this whole conversation feels in some ways, I find it fascinating (and possibly useful).  At the very least it seems to be an extreme example of empathy-seeking. This is "me" doing "mental stuff".   I don't know how to separate "mental stuff" from "body stuff" except perhaps /en e

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Doubling down on the incredulity fallacy? OK. Yes. There is something it is like to be trampled dirt. I don't know what you mean by "mental stuff", of course. I don't do any mental stuff as far as I know. Everything I do is inherently "body stuff". Maybe that's because I've experienced chronic p

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Would you though?!? You certainly wouldn't stop stepping on it. On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 9:16 PM Frank Wimberly wrote: > "...how do you think your ways of acting in the world would change if you > adopted such a position?" > > I would stop shooting piles of dirt with a .30-06. I haven't done

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

"...how do you think your ways of acting in the world would change if you adopted such a position?" I would stop shooting piles of dirt with a .30-06. I haven't done that for 60+ years but it's intended as a* reductio ad absurdum* argument. --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

"an account of the seemingly analogous position of panpsychism" What is that more than something people say? Do *you* experience the dirt at your feet as having a mental life? If so, tell me about it: What is the dirt like when it seems to be doing mental stuff? What kind of mental stuff is it do

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

---From: glen Date: 2/16/23 11:03 PM (GMT+01:00) To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories Well, I maintain significant skepticism about any coherent utility functions underlying the machines that do the discretization. The concept of utility seems to *need* a som

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Well, I maintain significant skepticism about any coherent utility functions underlying the machines that do the discretization. The concept of utility seems to *need* a somewhat unified/singular, and perhaps exogenous, agency, which makes it circular reasoning in this context. (Note that I def

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

On 2/16/23 11:26 AM, glen wrote: I don't grok the context well enough to equivocate on concepts like "have" and "category of being". But in response to Nick's question: "What is there that animals do that demands us to invent categories to explain their behavior?", my answer is "animals discre

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

I am on the THUAM zoom, Obama's Elf, if any body wants to talk to me. https://bit.ly/virtualfriam On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 10:23 AM Steve Smith wrote: > Might I offer some terminology reframing, or at least ask for some > additional explication? > >1. I think "behaviours" would be all Nick's

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

I don't grok the context well enough to equivocate on concepts like "have" and "category of being". But in response to Nick's question: "What is there that animals do that demands us to invent categories to explain their behavior?", my answer is "animals discretize the ambient muck". So if categ

[FRIAM] Nick's Categories

Might I offer some terminology reframing, or at least ask for some additional explication? 1. I think "behaviours" would be all Nick's Martians *could* observe?  They would be inferring "experiences" from observed behaviours? 2. When we talk about "categories" here, are we talking about "c