Jon, This is a great expansion of the issue, and it might take me a bit to build up to an adequate response.
You are definitely right that "scale" is one of many dimensions we might look at when evaluating whether or not something is a behavior. The evaluation of whether or not something is behaving involves comparisons, and those comparisons have to be "fair" in some sense that suggests a "domain". For example, if we drop a dead duck out a window, and then agree that falling in that fashion does not evidence behavior, we wouldn't want to then move to a coin-drop in water (where the coin spins and slides erratically, moving down at various speeds) and assert the coin was alive because it's movement didn't look like the dead-duck's movement. Does that get us anywhere? ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist American University - Adjunct Instructor <echar...@american.edu> On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 12:58 PM Jon Zingale <jonzing...@gmail.com> wrote: > Glen, Eric, > > I am enjoying how the conversation is developing. The celery > example strikes me as being important, but where Glen refers > to *scale* I would speak of *domain of definition*. That a shift in > domain happens to be size, rather than some other contextual > specification, may not be what we want. If this isn't the case > Glen, please let me know. With respect to Eric's points it seems > fair to me to say that a paddle wheel is behaving, but perhaps not > in the *larger* context of the river. The celery is behaving, but not > not in the *smaller* context of capillary action. Here I am using > the language of *large* and *small*, but perhaps other modalities > have a place as well. One can say Nick's behavior appears > spontaneously, but in fact was necessitated by something *prior*. > Here an *earlier* Nick could play the role of the river. > > Frank, > Would you say that the mind is as public as RSA encryption? > .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... > .... . ... > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
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