Hi Frank,
Thanks for putting your oar in.
How is your question different from the following question?
I am looking at a Cup with an inscription. When you [finally]
come to visit
me in Massachusetts, I will show you the inscription on the
cup. It will be
the same cup.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of
Frank Wimberly
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 9:50 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] BBC News - Ant colony 'personalities'
shaped by
environment
Nick,
Re: Your cup.
I am thinking of a card. Can you tell me what it is? I will
ask you again
when you are present in Santa Fe. It will be the same card.
This is just
to explain the problem I have with your claims about whether one
has private
access to one's mind.
Frank
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
wimber...@gmail.com <mailto:wimber...@gmail.com>
wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu <mailto:wimbe...@cal.berkeley.edu>
Phone: (505) 995-8715 <tel:%28505%29%20995-8715> Cell:
(505) 670-9918 <tel:%28505%29%20670-9918>
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Nick
Thompson
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 7:08 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] BBC News - Ant colony 'personalities'
shaped by
environment
John,
Ok. I am in. But we have to go slowly, because, as somebody
famously said, "In philosophy, if you are not moving slowly, you
aren't
moving." Not clear where to start. I don't want to try to
defend my
"insight" that our vernacular understanding of consciousness
arises not
because it is accurate but because it makes society possible. I
will say in
its defense only that the McNauton Rule which forms the basis
for our
notion of legal responsibility, states that I can only be
considered
criminally responsible If I know the nature and quality of my
own acts.
This phrase, "knowing nature and quality of one's acts" sounds a
heckuva lot
like a definition of [self] consciousness to me.
I thought we perhaps could start with unpacking "interior",
since it
appears in both of your messages ("access"). What does it mean
to say that
my thoughts are "inside" me. It ought to mean, if we play the
language
game of "inside" by the rules, that there is some sort of
container that my
thoughts are enclosed within. The use of the word, "access",
would seem to
suggest that I have ways of getting at the insides of the "box"
to "see" my
thoughts that you do not have. Perhaps the box is a 5-sided
box, and it's
open side faces me, so I can see inside and you cannot? If
that is how the
metaphor works, then you should be able to come around to my
side of the
box and look in examine its contents with me. Or, if my access
is provided
by a key, you should be able to use that key to get inside my
box. In other
words, there should be some set of conditions under which you
can see
exactly what I see. Since this entailment of the box metaphor
undermines
the essential privacy of mind, I assume that you would rule it
out by, say,
asserting that only I have the key to my box, and I cannot loan
it to you.
But now we encounter another problem. I think you would agree
that you do
have some access to the inside of my box, beyond the access that
I might
provide you by telling you what is inside it. Certainly, if I
wrote you
now the words, "I really have no interest in issues in the
philosophy of
mind," you would have every reason to assert that I had
misrepresented the
contents of my box to you. So, to make the metaphor work, we
would have to
imagine that, perhaps it's sides are not entirely opaque, or not
opaque all
the time. Perhaps they are sometimes translucent?
How about a different metaphor altogether? How about the
metaphor of "point
of view"? My consciousness is just that what is seen from the
point of
view on the world from where I stand. It is mine only in the
sense that it
is indexed to me, not in the sense that I own it or that it is
in me. For
example, there is a cup on my desk whose inscription is turned
toward me so
that if you were sitting across my desk from me right now, you
would not
"have access to it". The inscription is, "ONLY MUGS PAY POLL
TAX." I am
conscious of it in the sense that my behavior points to it.
From your point
of view, my consciousness is just all that my behavior
designates. When
your behavior designates the relations between me and some of
the objects in
your environment, you become conscious of what I am conscious.
When my
behavior designates those same relations, I become
self-conscious. I think
"self-consciousness is what we are principally arguing about, here.
I hope this answer is somewhat satisfying. Thanks for running
me around the
track. I am trying to write some on this subject this summer.
I really
need the exercise.
Best,
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of John
Kennison
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 12:52 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] BBC News - Ant colony 'personalities'
shaped by
environment
Hi Nick,
I certainly don't think of what you said as "rude" --in fact I
asked you to
tell what errors you might see in what I said.
And in any case, I am very glad to agree that we are old friends
and can, if
necessary, forgive what might appear as rudeness.
I am willing to accept your conclusion that the words "inner
subjective
life" are not really very useful and do no contribute much to my
idea of
what consciousness is. I don't think I claimed that they are
either of these
things.
I am having difficulty seeing the connection between these words
and a
quasi-legal understanding that I and only I get to speak for
myself.
I guess I would say that my sense of what my consciousness is
all about will
be different from yours because I have access to my thoughts and
vague
feelings etc. that differs from the kind of access you have.
It's okay with
me if you speak for myself (so to speak) --and I imagine you
will, perhaps
over the previous sentence. I invite and will (I think) welcome
your
analysis.
--John
________________________________________
From: Friam [friam-boun...@redfish.com
<mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>] on behalf of Nick Thompson
[nickthomp...@earthlink.net <mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>]
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 11:38 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Cc: James Laird
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] BBC News - Ant colony 'personalities'
shaped by
environment
Hi, John,
Nothing like a sober, quiet, good question to knock an old
warrior off his
high horse.
Ok. Now that I am standing on the ground ...
First, let us stipulate, we are talking about
self-consciousness, here, ...
something beyond sentience, right? If so, then I think your
question is a
wonderful example of a "mystery", like we talked about
yesterday. A mystery
is a state of pleasurable confusion generated by using words
outside their
realm of usefulness. So, I would predict that if we sat down
and unpacked
"inner", "subjective", and "life" we would discover that these
words have
really nothing to contribute beyond the assertion that "I, and
only I, get
to speak for me." In other words, under your use of
"consciousness", it is
really a quasi-legal understanding central to human interaction
that, in the
absence of a legal certification of incompetence, our assertions
about our
own needs, wants, thoughts, etc., are to be taken as
definitive. So, for
instance, what I just said -- that your view of consciousness is
not quite
what you think it is -- would be (may be) seen as RUDE, in
polite society,
because, on your own understanding of consciousness, you and
only you get to
say what you think it is. Because we have been friends for more
than 40
years, I hoping you will let that rudeness pass.
On my account, an entity is conscious of something when it acts
with respect
to it, and SELF-conscious, when it acts with reference to
itself. On that
account, a simple thermostat is clearly conscious, but not
self-conscious.
A more complicated thermostat, which calibrates its own
sensitivity (which
most modern thermostats do), would probably have to be admitted as
self-conscious.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of John
Kennison
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 11:00 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] BBC News - Ant colony 'personalities'
shaped by
environment
Nick,
I guess my criterion for consciousness would be something like
"has an inner
subjective life". It's not something that I can measure and it
has the
problem of circularity --if you ask me what I mean by an "inner
subjective
life" I will soon be making a circular definition. I am willing
to concede
that I don't have a suitable definition for a scientific study of
consciousness. Still the question of whether a thermostat has
consciousness
seems meaningful to me. (I don't have an answer --other than "I
doubt it". )
Perhaps, I am making some kind of error. If so, could you
explain what my
mistake is.
--John
________________________________________
From: Friam [friam-boun...@redfish.com
<mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>] on behalf of Nick Thompson
[nickthomp...@earthlink.net <mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>]
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 10:20 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] BBC News - Ant colony 'personalities'
shaped by
environment
So, I looked up David Chalmers . Yeh, I know: I shouldn't have
HAD to
look up David Chalmers. Here from Philosophy Index
A potential problem with this speculation, which Chalmers
acknowledges, is
that it may imply the consciousness of things that we would not
normally
consider to have consciousness at all. For instance, Chalmers
wonders if
this means that a thermostat may have some experiential
properties, even if
they are especially dull. He does not commit to the notion that
they do, but
the possibility remains in the more speculative area of his
thought.
This is one of those "TED" insights, to which the only rational
response is,
"Duh!" Why exactly is that a problem? What exactly would it
have meant to
say that "humans are conscious" if it were not possible to
discover that (1)
things other than humans are conscious and/or that humans are
not, in fact,
conscious. Either we have a criterion for consciousness or we
don't; once
we have a criterion, we either apply it rigorously or . we are
dishonest.
It's really quite simple, actually.
N
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric
Smith
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 9:45 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] BBC News - Ant colony 'personalities'
shaped by
environment
Quick, somebody call David Chalmers!
On Aug 15, 2014, at 9:25 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
Weird that they want to call it "personality" instead of more
simply saying
that ant colonies seem to adapt to their local environment. Of
course, the
flashiness of the claim is the only reason it is being covered
on the BBC,
so I guess it isn't that weird after all.
-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Lab Manager
Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning American University,
Hurst Hall
Room 203A
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20016
phone: (202) 885-3867 <tel:%28202%29%20885-3867> fax: (202)
885-1190 <tel:%28202%29%20885-1190>
email: echar...@american.edu
<mailto:echar...@american.edu><mailto:echar...@american.edu>
<mailto:echar...@american.edu>
On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 3:57 PM, Gillian Densmore
<gil.densm...@gmail.com
<mailto:gil.densm...@gmail.com><mailto:gil.densm...@gmail.com>
<mailto:gil.densm...@gmail.com>> wrote:
A few swarm inteligence from the 90s described that. Scott
Kelly's "Fast
Cheap and Out of Controll" touched on that. In his case they
knew ants (and
often uncles) could pass around experience- and displayed
something simillar
to hummans sense of experience they didn't have a explination.
Then again
his forray into science was from the 90s.
On Fri, Aug 8, 2014 at 9:01 AM, Tom Johnson
<t...@jtjohnson.com
<mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com><mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com>
<mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com>> wrote:
So who is going to integrate this into the sugar model?
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28658268
===================================
Tom Johnson - Inst. for Analytic Journalism Santa Fe, NM
t...@jtjohnson.com
<mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com><mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com>
<mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com>.
505-473-9646 <tel:505-473-9646><tel:505-473-9646>
<tel:505-473-9646>
===================================
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