On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 10:47 AM Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> 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 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 anyway?"
https://www.academia.edu/73428704/Extruding_intentionality_from_the_metaphysical_flux
I think where I might get most bamboozled by talk of "there is
something
that it is *like* to *be* trampled dirt has to do with the
boundaries of
identity and object and the subject-object relation of
affordances. A
subject perceives/experiences/exercises/relates-to the affordance
of an
object? A pile of dirt has identity as a pile only insomuch as
there
is a subject (also an object in it's own right) which
percieves/acts-on
the pile of dirt *as if* it had a boundary and an identity and
with some
kind of affordance (e.g. trampleable?). I don't think there is
anything intrinsic in being a distribution of dirt-particles which
has
anything to do with trampling or trampleable... but then the
nature of
a foot does not make for trample-ability alone either? To trample
requires a tramplee? A thing to be trampled? A state change in the
tramplee from untrampled to trampled?
Or to repeat myself, perhaps I am barking up the wrong
lexicon/ontology/cosmology here? We are possibly (always and
forever?)
on the opposite sides of a looking glass?
woof!
- Steve
On 2/17/23 9:11 AM, glen wrote:
> 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 dirt. (Soil, now, maybe
that's a
> different, more interesting idea. But we won't talk about soil or
> mycelia because it's easier to rely on incredulity.) But the
absence
> of [sy|e]mpathy for some thing does *not* imply the absence of some
> arbitrary property like "what it is like" to be that thing. I also
> wouldn't claim that dirt "feels" anything. Why is "feeling"
correlated
> with "being" or qualia?
>
> More importantly, your examples of "mental stuff" simply don't
carry
> any water for me. "Occurring to me" is entirely a body thing to
me. It
> literally stops and redirects my behavior, my body. I don't see how
> its any different from any other subtle thing like smelling
coffee or
> glimpsing movement in peripheral vision.
>
> Empathy-seeking as an example of "mental stuff"? Hm. For me, I
> empathize with people I interact with. I don't think I can
empathize
> with some[one|thing] I haven't interacted with. Now,
*imagining*, that
> may be a useful foil. But, again, I can't imagine anything without
> some imagining tools. Tool-less imagining doesn't exist for me.
(And
> I'm arrogant in thinking it doesn't exist for anyone else, either.
> Those who *think* they can imagine without tools have been tricked,
> brainwashed into believing in "pure mental stuff".)
>
> I've had trouble finding the research lately. But there's evidence
> that when we imagine spinning, say, a ball around its axis,
there's a
> lot of overlap with the neural structures that fire in our brain as
> when we're actually spinning a ball with our hand. That's body
stuff.
> Even if my "imagining" seems entirely within the bounds of my
skull,
> it's still body stuff. It's still tool-mediated, even if the
mediation
> occurs longitudinally, through time/training. I just have no
idea what
> you guys mean by "mental stuff".
>
>
> On 2/17/23 07:43, Steve Smith wrote:
>> 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 extrema/, /per
>> exemplia/. Imaginating on what it is like to be trampled-dirt
would
>> fit into my category of "doing mental stuff", whatever that
actually
>> means (beyond being able to label extreme examples of it?)
>>
>> Glen sez "there is something it is like to be trampled dirt" as if
>> that actually means something and that any/all of us perhaps can
>> experience that. Try as I might I can't quite "feel what it
is like
>> to be trampled dirt".... however I do find that I can find
within the
>> things I'm more inclined to call "body stuff" that my "mental
stuff"
>> is willing to label (very loosely) as "being like trampled dirt".
>> BUT I don't know that in that process I ever imagine I actually
"feel
>> like trampled dirt".
>>
>> I could ramble forever (uncountable, not infiinite) on
examples of
>> what it is for *me* to "be like trampled dirt" ( a great deal
of what
>> feeds good poetry actually) and some here *might8 recognize
some/many
>> of my examples and end up "feeling like trampled dirt" more
than they
>> did before they read it. This would be what *I* call communication
>> (which Glen insists does not actually exist?). I'm possibly
>> talking/thinking (mental stuff) into "feeling like trampled dirt"
>> (body stuff) here. I don't know that I can claim (imagine) that
>> dirt is in any way communicating "what it is like to be trampled
>> dirt" to me except perhaps simply by *being trampled dirt*.
>> Observing dirt as it is trampled, or as it's configuration
suggests
>> "having been trampled" seems to be part of *my* strategy in
trying to
>> imagine "being trampled dirt"
>>
>> And it occurs to me (mental stuff, this 'occuring to") that the
very
>> description *as* "trampled" dirt is a projection of a living
creature
>> onto something with no obvious agency nor sensation? To the
extent
>> that dirt is something that *most* creatures walk/run/stomp-about
>> upon (at least dirt on the surface of a gravitational body), it is
>> *all trampled*? Of course, dirt on the surface of the moon
(is it
>> actually *dirt* if it's origins are not earthly? Moon-dust,
>> Moon-rock, Moon-gravel) is on the whole untrampled (with the
>> exception of the small area where Apollo Astronauts placed their
>> feet?) and maybe by extension where the landing-pads of the Lunar
>> Lander's touched down and then by yet-more extension, every
place a
>> bit of man-made debris has struck or landed-on the surface? Which
>> leads us to the possibility that *all* moon-surface material is
>> "trampled earth", being "trampled by meteors"?
>>
>> As I write this I "feel like moondust, trampled not only by
>> meteorites/asteroids but also by cosmic rays"...
>>
>> What is the opposite-of/complement-to /reductio ad absurdum/ ?
>> /ridiculum faciens nota /or more likely/ridiculum faciens usitata
>> verberando sicut equus mortuus/
>>
>>
>> On 2/17/23 12:35 AM, ⛧ glen wrote:
>>> 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 pain my whole life. Maybe
some of
>>> you consistently live in a body free experience? I've only
>>> experienced that a few times, e.g. running in a fasted state.
And I
>>> later suffered for that indulgent delusion.
>>>
>>> No. Neither the dirt nor I do "mental stuff". So you need a more
>>> concrete question.
>>>
>>> On February 16, 2023 6:04:17 PM PST, Eric
>>> Charles<eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> "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 doing?
>>>>
>>>> If not: Have you seen anyone who earnestly thinks the dirt is
doing
>>>> mental
>>>> stuff? If so, what were *they* like? How was that belief
pervasive
>>>> in their
>>>> adjustments to the world? Based on your experiences with that
>>>> person, how
>>>> do you think your ways of acting in the world would change if
you
>>>> adopted
>>>> such a position?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> <echar...@american.edu>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 1:27 PM glen<geprope...@gmail.com> 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 discretize the ambient
muck". So if
>>>>> categorization is somehow fundamentally related to
discretization,
>>>>> then
>>>>> animals clearly categorize in that sense.
>>>>>
>>>>> I mean, all you have to do is consider the frequencies of
light the
>>>>> animals' eyeballs do or don't see. That's two categories right
>>>>> there, the
>>>>> light they do see and the light they don't. Unless there's some
>>>>> sophistry
>>>>> hidden behind the question, the answer seems clear.
Reflection on
>>>>> what one
>>>>> does and does not categorize isn't necessary. I could even
claim
>>>>> my truck
>>>>> discretizes fluids ... those that make it seize up versus
>>>>> lubricate it,
>>>>> those that it burns vs those that stop it cold. Etc. Maybe the
>>>>> question is
>>>>> better formulated as "What makes one impute categories on
>>>>> another?" Clearly
>>>>> my truck doesn't impute categories on squirrels.
>>>>>
>>>>> But Nick does follow that question with this "experience"
>>>>> nonsense. So my
>>>>> guess is there *is* some sophistry behind the question,
similar to
>>>>> EricC's
>>>>> incredulous response to DaveW's question about phenomenological
>>>>> composition
>>>>> of experience(s). What I find missing in Nick's (and EricC's)
>>>>> distillation
>>>>> of experience monism is an account of the seemingly analogous
>>>>> position of
>>>>> panpsychism. Were I a scholar, I might take such work on
myself.
>>>>> But I'm
>>>>> not and, hence, very much appreciate these distillations of
dead
>>>>> white
>>>>> men's metaphysics and will take what I can get. 8^D
>>>>>
>>>>> On 2/16/23 09:22, 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 Martians *could*
>>>>>> observe?
>>>>> They would be inferring "experiences" from observed behaviours?
>>>>>> 2. When we talk about "categories" here, are we talking about
>>>>> "categories of being"? Ontologies, as it were?
>>>>>> Regarding ErisS' reflections... I *do* think that animals
behave *as
>>>>> if* they "have categories", though I don't know what it even
means
>>>>> to say
>>>>> that they "have categories" in the way Aristotle and his
>>>>> legacy-followers
>>>>> (e.g. us) do... I would suggest/suspect that dogs and
squirrels
>>>>> are in no
>>>>> way aware of these "categories" and that to say that they do
is a
>>>>> projection by (us) humans who have fabricated the (useful in
myriad
>>>>> contexts) of a category/Category/ontology. So in that
sense they
>>>>> do NOT
>>>>> *have* categories... I think in this
>>>>> conception/thought-experiment we
>>>>> assume that Martians *would* and would be looking to map
their own
>>>>> ontologies onto the behaviour (and inferred experiences and
>>>>> judgements?)
>>>>> of Terran animals?
>>>>>> If I were to invert the subject/object relation, I would
suggest
>>>>>> that it
>>>>> is "affordances" not "experiences" (or animals' behaviours) we
>>>>> want to
>>>>> categorize into ontologies? It is what things are "good
for" that
>>>>> make
>>>>> them interesting/similar/different to living beings. And
"good
>>>>> for" is
>>>>> conditionally contextualized. My dog and cat both find
squirrels
>>>>> "good
>>>>> for" chasing, but so too for baby rabbits and skunks (once).
>>>>>> Or am I barking up the wrong set of reserved lexicons?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To segue (as I am wont to do), it feels like this discussion
>>>>>> parallels
>>>>> the one about LLMs where we train the hell out of variations on
>>>>> learning
>>>>> classifier systems until they are as good as (or better
than) we
>>>>> (humans)
>>>>> are at predicting the next token in a string of human-generated
>>>>> tokens (or
>>>>> synthesizing a string of tokens which humans cannot distinguish
>>>>> from a
>>>>> string generated by another human, in particular one with the
>>>>> proverbial
>>>>> 10,000 hours of specialized training). The fact that or
>>>>> "ologies" tend to
>>>>> be recorded and organized as knowledge structures and in
fact usually
>>>>> *propogated* (taught/learnt) by the same makes us want to
believe
>>>>> (some of
>>>>> us) that hidden inside these LLMs are precisely the same
"ologies" we
>>>>> encode in our myriad textbooks and professional journal
articles?
>>>>>> I think one of the questions that remains present within this
>>>>>> group's
>>>>> continued 'gurgitations is whether the organizations we have
>>>>> conjured are
>>>>> particularly special, or just one of an infinitude of superposed
>>>>> alternative formulations? And whether some of those
formulations
>>>>> are
>>>>> acutely occult and/or abstract and whether the existing
(accepted)
>>>>> formulations (e.g. Western Philosophy and Science, etc) are
>>>>> uniquely (and
>>>>> exclusively or at least optimally) capable of
capturing/describing
>>>>> what is
>>>>> "really real" (nod to George Berkeley).
>>>>>> Some here (self included) may often suggest that such
formulation
>>>>>> is at
>>>>> best a coincidence of history and as well as it "covers" a
>>>>> description of
>>>>> "reality", it is by circumstance and probably by abstract
>>>>> conception ("all
>>>>> models are wrong...") incomplete and in error. But
nevertheless
>>>>> still
>>>>> useful...
>>>>>> Maybe another way of reframing Nick's question (on a
tangent) is
>>>>>> to ask
>>>>> whether the Barsoomians had their own Aristotle to conceive of
>>>>> Categories? Or did they train their telescopes on ancient
Greece
>>>>> and
>>>>> learn Latin Lip Reading and adopt one or more the Greek's
>>>>> philosophical
>>>>> traditions? And then, did the gas-balloon creatures
floating in the
>>>>> atmosphere-substance of Jupiter observe the Martians' who had
>>>>> observed the
>>>>> Greeks and thereby come up with their own Categories. Maybe
it was
>>>>> those
>>>>> creatures who beamed these abstractions straight into the
neural
>>>>> tissue of
>>>>> the Aristotelians and Platonists? Do gas-balloon creatures
even
>>>>> have
>>>>> solids to be conceived of as Platonic? And are they missing out
>>>>> if they
>>>>> don't? Do they have their own Edwin Abbot Abbot? And what
would
>>>>> the
>>>>> Cheela<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg> say?
>>>>>> My dog and the rock squirrels he chases want to know... so
do the
>>>>>> cholla
>>>>> cactus fruits/segments they hoard in their nests!
>>>>>> Mumble,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - Steve
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2/16/23 5:37 AM, Santafe wrote:
>>>>>>> It’s the tiniest and most idiosyncratic take on this
question, but
>>>>> FWIW, here:
>>>>>>> https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1520752113
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I actually think that all of what Nick says below is a
perfectly
>>>>>>> good
>>>>> draft of a POV.
>>>>>>> As to whether animals “have” categories: Spend time with a
dog.
>>>>> Doesn’t take very much time. Their interest in conspecifics is
>>>>> (ahem)
>>>>> categorically different from their interest in people,
different
>>>>> than to
>>>>> squirrels, different than to cats, different than to snakes.
>>>>>>> For me to even say that seems like cueing a narcissism of
small
>>>>> differences, when overwhelmingly, their behavior is
structured around
>>>>> categories, as is everyone else’s. Squirrels don’t mistake
acorns
>>>>> for
>>>>> birds of prey. Or for the tree limbs and house roofs one
can jump
>>>>> onto.
>>>>> Or for other squirrels. It’s all categories. Behavior is an
>>>>> operation on
>>>>> categories.
>>>>>>> I found it interesting that you invoked “nouns” as a
framework
>>>>>>> that is
>>>>> helpful but sometimes obstructive. One might just have said
>>>>> “words”. This
>>>>> is interesting to me already, because my syntactician
friends will
>>>>> tell you
>>>>> that a noun is not, as we were taught as children, a “word
for a
>>>>> person,
>>>>> place, or thing”, but rather a “word in a language that
transforms
>>>>> as nouns
>>>>> transform in that language”, which is a bit of an obfuscation,
>>>>> since they
>>>>> do have in common that they are in some way “object-words”.
But
>>>>> from the
>>>>> polysemy and synonymy perspective, we see that “meanings”
cross the
>>>>> noun-verb syntactic distinction quite frequently for some
categories.
>>>>> Eye/see, ear/hear, moon/shine, and stuff like that. My
typologist
>>>>> friends
>>>>> tell me that is common but particular to some meanings much
more than
>>>>> others.
>>>>>>> Another fun thing I was told by Ted Chiang a few months ago,
>>>>>>> which I
>>>>> was amazed I had not heard from linguists, and still want to
hold in
>>>>> reserve until I can check it further. He says that
languages without
>>>>> written forms do not have a word for “word”. If true, that
seems
>>>>> very
>>>>> interesting and important. If Chiang believes it to be
true, it is
>>>>> probably already a strong enough regularity to be more-or-less
>>>>> true, and
>>>>> thus still interesting and important.
>>>>>>> Eric
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Feb 15, 2023, at 1:19 PM,<thompnicks...@gmail.com> <
>>>>> thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> FWiW, I willmake every effort to arrive fed to Thuam by 10.30
>>>>> Mountain. I want to hear the experts among you hold forth
on WTF a
>>>>> cateogory actually IS. I am thinking (duh) that a category
is a
>>>>> more or
>>>>> less diffuse node in a network of associations (signs, if you
>>>>> must). Hence
>>>>> they constitute a vast table of what goes with what, what is
>>>>> predictable
>>>>> from what, etc. This accommodates “family resemblance” quite
>>>>> nicely. Do
>>>>> I think animals have categories, in this sense, ABSOLUTELY
EFFING
>>>>> YES. Does
>>>>> this make me a (shudder) nominalist? I hope not.
>>>>>>>> Words…nouns in particular… confuse this category
business. Words
>>>>> place constraints on how vague these nodes can be. They
impose
>>>>> on the
>>>>> network constraints to which it is ill suited. True, the
more my
>>>>> associations with “horse” line up with your associations with
>>>>> “horse”, the
>>>>> more true the horse seems. Following Peirce, I would say that
>>>>> where our
>>>>> nodes increasingly correspond with increasing shared
experience,
>>>>> we have
>>>>> evidence ot the (ultimate) truth of the nodes, their
“reality” in
>>>>> Peirce’s
>>>>> terms. Here is where I am striving to hang on to Peirce’s
realism.
>>>>>>>> The reason I want the geeks to participate tomorrow is
that I keep
>>>>> thinking of a semantic webby thing that Steve devised for the
>>>>> Institute
>>>>> about a decade ago. Now a semantic web would be a kind of
>>>>> metaphor for an
>>>>> associative web; don’t associate with other words in exactly
the same
>>>>> manner in which experiences associate with other experiences.
>>>>> Still, I
>>>>> think the metaphor is interesting. Also, I am kind of
>>>>> re-interested in my
>>>>> “authorial voice”, how much it operates like cbt.
>
>
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