Steve Smith wrote at 05/07/2013 09:09 AM: > I understood that when I wrote it of course... but...
I know. But language coerces thought. So, it's important (to me) to avoid metaphor when possible. And it's important to my (puzzling) distinction between thought and behavior, cf below. > I still think it makes sense (though it is highly figurative) to say > that "science aspires". What I am saying when I say that is that there > is some "collective" who *want* science to mean what I am suggesting, > even if they may fail to do their part consistently in making it that > way. I think there is a collective (but not fully consensual) > aspiration among people who identify *as* science (scientists) and/or > proper science groupies (people who do not *practice* science as such > but who *do* consume it (consciously and introspectively). Hm. You're piling on changes in the meanings of words faster than I can handle. ;-) By "collective thing", I intended to talk about the product, the artifact, not the "collective" that produced the artifact. So, by saying that mainstream science is a collective thing (as I think Wertheim said in the interview) is not necessarily equivalent to saying it is a consensus thing _or_ equivalent to saying that a collective produced the thing. Perhaps she (and everyone) would agree with the leaps you've made from collective thing, to consensus, to the collective that created the thing. But in my never-ending perversity, I don't. 8^) A collective thing is quite distinct from a consensus thing. And a collective thing is distinct from "collectives that produce things". > What if the > observing crow abstracts this to demonstrating the action of prizing a > grub out, but without the grub? Is this language? Coining a "term" in > the proto language of "to prize a morsel"? Perhaps if there is already > a posture or vocalization to be associated with "a tasty morsel" or "I > seek/desire a tasty morsel"? Now you're talking! (Ha! Sorry.) Yes, this is on the right path, I think. If it's possible for a crow to demonstrate the technique without a grub being there, then I would suggest a crow might be capable of science. If it's possible for _another_ crow to learn to use the technique without a grub present, then later use it when grubs are present, then I'd say that validates the idea that crows might be capable of science. And we can have that discussion without hemming and hawing over the definition of language. > I continue to be interested in (both puzzled and intrigued) by your > distinction between behavior and thought and language. While I believe > our consciousness is rooted in direct experience, I also think our > language generates a qualitatively different nature in our > consciousness. The simplest level of language (pointing at/naming > things) has it's charms and uses, but I think something else happens > when we actually start to use predicates. I am wondering if you feel > that empathy provides access to a "proto-predicate" in the same way that > "pointing at" might provide proto-subject/objects? The way I use "empathy" is as a hook into the deeper concepts of concretization and abstraction, as well as anthropomorphism. For example, when I see one of those TV commercials trying to get me to donate to feed starving children in Africa, I posit that particular neurological (and other physiological) processes are activated in my body. The same physical processes are activated when I see an ASPCA commercial. And when I watch some schmuck get hit in the testicles on "Jackass: the movie" or whatever. I go a step further and claim that those _same_ processes are activated when I watch a cooking show, or watch one of our dorks operate a 3D printer. Now, so far, all these involve animals that look like me, have faces, or eyeballs, or paws, or whatever. A crow is one step further away. But I can still do it quite easily. In fact, I can even do it with machines. I can watch, say, a BEAM robot trying to move around an obstacle and I can _feel_ its frustration when it fails. I can watch the little spinning hourglass or whatever on my computer and _feel_ the polling client process' frustration at the delay, or infinite loop, or whatever that's making the server process nonresponsive. This is what I mean when I say "empathy". Now, if you choose to think about this as a "class of things enough like me", then sure, it's a predicate (or proto-predicate). But in making such a leap (from messy biological wet stuff to hyper-clean Platonic logic stuff), we have a problem with "definiteness", dynamism, ambiguity, etc. Predicates are ideal(ized). What I'm doing when I smash a poor fly and feel bad about it is NOT a clean, ideal. It's real. I'm _there_... inside the sh!t with the fly. And I can don and doff lots of predicates faster than you can say "predicate", as well as wearing more than one at a time. I can do that because my body is real, but my thoughts are not. If that distinction puzzles you, then I have no idea what words I could type, here, to make it less puzzling. > The key to the way I think of "language" and the way you discuss it > seems to be that I'm assuming that sentient beings (or at least humans, > or at least me) build simulations *in* language and execute them *in* > logic. > > Of course, we have the stories of folks like UberGeek Nikolai Tesla who > claimed to build models of devices in his mind and then "execute" them > in his sleep, waking later knowing the performance/flaws of his > simulated devices. I believe it's true, that most (if not all) people do something akin to building and running simulations in their head. However, where we _might_ disagree is that I believe the components of those simulations are NOT software, NOT thoughts, NOT ideas, not logic. They are wet, messy, globs of neurons, astrocytes, epithelials cells, free radicals, well-bound molecules, etc. Those are the building blocks of the simulations we build and execute in our heads. What you call "logic" is actually wet-n-messy biology ... or dirty-nasty physics, depending on your preference. Pretending you can extract an idealized logic from it's wet-n-messy machine is pure pretense, to me ... like denying your origins or some form of self-loathing. It is from that context that I talk of science being a real, dirty-nasty, objectively true thing, independent of, in spite of, the fantasies we engage in with our thoughts. And therein lies it's success over even more fantastically imaginary things like religion or Platonic mathematics. The reason science works and the rest fails is _because_ it's dirtier, nastier, wetter, messier, than whatever we might think ... which is why the methods section is the important part of a journal article. ;-) -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847, http://tempusdictum.com The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. -- H. L. Mencken ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
