Thanks Eric for your anecdote. I think I will pause before I respond at length, because it deserves careful thought and I just cant manage that now. I think of scientifiic objectivity as an aspirational concept. Think of a bunch of backpackers out in the woods discussing where they are going to camp tonight. Absent helicopters (always a possibility) and assuming accurate information concerning where they are at any moment, where they are converges on where they will be. Like a backwards random walk perhaps? Where we sleep tonight not only plays an important role in their dialogue but will in the end become a fact of some matter.
The metaphor of "breathing under water" is a stunner and led me to wonder what might have happened if you had been raised on a regulator. I should stop. I need to push on on weather book/ pamphlet, or whatever it is. N On Tue, Dec 2, 2025 at 4:52 AM Santafe <[email protected]> wrote: > I wanted to reply at this branch point a couple of weeks ago, but could > not at the time. > > This reply is meant also to Nick’s thread “migraine auras, reprise”, which > I got on 29 November, and the reverberations on that one. > > > On Nov 25, 2025, at 12:58, glen <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Changing gears a bit, I ran across the "as if" personality < > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_disturbance>. I can't help but > wonder about a room full of agents "concealing their inner emptiness, > living *as if* they had genuine feelings and desires." >8^D I'm at risk of > Get-Off-My-Lawn, here. But 90% of the time, when I'm in a room with more > than, say, 5 people, it *feels* to me like they're all philosophical > zombies, maybe me included. > > > > Are we all *actually* "as if" personalities? And those who think they're > not are delusional? > > I understand that Glen’s direction here goes somewhat meta from what I was > after, and that it becomes its own line of inquiry, at a considerably > higher level of structural organization than the one I was after. But, in > the assurance of becoming tedious, I wanted to re-harp a little on the > level of description I was after. > > From the other thread: > > > On Nov 29, 2025, at 23:07, Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > As often happens, my original post on mental imagery worked itself away > from my original purpose, which was to explore the concept of objectivity. > > > Nick > > That was my original purpose, too, because in any conversation that takes > the conflation of objectivity with intersubjectivity to even be > conceivable, I have come to think that the conversation doesn’t have its > category distinctions straight. My own belief’s being that objective, > subjective, and intersubjective, are terms that do such different work that > there is no way they can be either “similes” or “alternatives”, because > they are in wildly different categories. > > I am sure that, after saying it was my purpose to explore the concept of > objectivity, Nick will reiterate that the thread has veered away from his > purpose of exploring the concept of objectivity. So interesting how > different styles of mind can be…. > > > The reason I will be tedious is that I gave part of the argument below in > a rant some months ago, when the mystics with their relentless obscurantism > were driving me crazy (in other lines of conversation), and I was trying to > decide what categories I thought I could think and speak in, that wouldn’t > just devolve into this term-circus inherited from loose common speech. > > The thing I thought was “new” to my point was the claim that we want a > term like “objective” to refer to the states (or postures) of mind that we > take on in relation to assertions in certain circumstances. If I knew what > Phenomenology was, I would believe that the argument I want to make is in > the vein of Phenomenology, meaning about just-what one is doing in engaging > experientially with some activity or assertion. But I haven’t read any > Phenomenology, so I am probably just making up what those guys are about, > and poaching their name. > > > The point, though, being that, for me, all this should start in the body. > I can’t argue in general terms, so I will argue anecdotally from the only > case that made me think I have some concrete and crisp contrast to > illustrate a distinction. > > The anecdote is from the good luck that my first experience of scuba > diving came fairly late into adulthood. Here’s what I would argue the > observation and its content are: > > 1. I have swum throughout childhood, and also breathed for my entire > life. I never did both at the same time (meaning, didn’t breathe while > underwater). I also had the good fortune to never be waterboarded. > > 2. Hence there were two conditions that were familiar to me. One was > breathing. The other was having my head underwater and not breathing. > > 2a. I would argue that, for me, there were two “bundles” of activities > and states of mind that were internally linked, but externally disjoint. > There “is” “however you breathe”, and there “is” “holding your breath when > your head is under water”. I would have had no way to disaggregate either > of these bundles, or even to triangulate on the possibility that there was > anything to disaggregate. > > 3. Then came the first time of putting my head underwater with a scuba > regulator, and initiating breathing through it. The first inhale was > choppy with a very fast pace, hesitant and interrupted, and over an > interval of perhaps a second or two, gave way to the “normal” (or, > more-normal, still not the same as thoughtless breathing above-water) > mode. That early stage was entirely unanticipated, and I think, under any > normal use of the term, “involuntary”. > > 3a. So, for the first time, I had more than one “state of mind”, or > “mental posture” I could be in while breathing. That made it possible to > see that breathing was not an irreducible activity. > > 3b. I say I was lucky to only have this experience fairly late in life, > because it probably helped to solidify the two irreducible bundles > (breathing normally versus holding my breath); if I had started scuba very > early, I may have had such a quick adaptation to the new activity, or it > may have been buried in so many adaptations to so many new activities, that > I might not have noticed it as something salient. > > 4. My abstraction step is to say that “taking for granted” that there is > air outside my head is reported, physiologically, in the normal breathing > activity, and no-longer taking that “for granted” was reported, > physiologically, in the very different “doubtful” mode of breathing. The > deliberative and intentional layer of acting can be recognized as separate > and operating in a context set by much-else that is the foundation-posture > within which intention operates. > > Anyway, without further belaborment, you get the point: There are all > kinds of physiological reports of when I am taking something for granted. > That I am standing on a floor in a room and not on top of a flagpole on the > Empire State building, that my head is not underwater, that there is not an > uncaged tiger in the room with me, or one of Stephen Miller’s thugs, or > some other known predatory and sadistic thing whose attention I don’t want > on me. > > I wanted to assert that the essence of whatever the term “objective” needs > to refer to, was the taking-on of this posture of de facto taking something > for granted. The mystics who claim they take nothing for granted, and > everything is a hypothesis, seem to me to be talking nonsense. Your heart > takes all sorts of things for granted just by persisting in its beating, as > we can verify from the cases when it doesn’t do so. When they say > “everything” they might really be referring to some relatively high-level > cognitive integrations, but of course if they admitted that, they wouldn't > be able to hide in their obscurantism and keep everybody guessing whether > they might be magical. > > But back from my rant: I want to claim, here in my armchair, that if > there are good, stable foundations for terms like “objective”, or Glen’s > (and proper usage's) “metaphysical commitments”, they should be these: the > myriad things that lie below deliberative thought, rooted as deep as > physiology in some cases, and more shallowly as habit in others, that we > _always_ “take for granted” as part of coordinated mental functioning. > Things can migrate a bit across that boundary — one can come to breathe > quite smoothly through a scuba regulator — and one of the fascinating > things, to me, about the changes that take place as we “come to understand” > things that are new to us, is that the deep fabric of “understanding” > involves a reworking of where some activity, experience, assertion, etc., > and their attendant states of mind, fall w.r.t. this split of taking or not > taking for granted. > > Relative to the above, “intersubjective” is a quite shallow and procedural > word, having to do with the mechanics of epistemology, and how we scaffold > our discourse and our growth-activities of coming to understand things. > These terms have their own structure, of course, also fine to analyze and > get good language around, but they are quite different from shifts in > postures of mind that we might sometimes have parallax to see. (And then, > “subjective’ is a typological term, about the categories of phenomena that > we associate with “sensations” etc., and for which meaning is inherently > about relations, of the phenomenon to some self, the phenomenon to its > sensation-aspect, etc. So a third, entirely distinct, kind of semantic > work the term is doing.) > > Back to Glen’s branch in the above thread, I could probably imagine an > analysis in which some of these distinctions do propagate up to how > identity is formed, and whether or in what ways it is stable or unstable, > as in borderline personality disorders and associated. Or maybe not, and > the identity-stability question is a distinct matter (?). > > Anyway, thanks for patience or indulgence if anybody read this far, > > Eric > > > > > > > > On 11/24/25 5:06 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > >> I'm finding your Lean4 fascinating for it's balance between intuitive > enough to (almost) read and (known to be) formal enough to trust to be > testable/executeable. > >> Reminds me vaguely of the semester I learned BNF and kept finding > myself expressing (only to myself) observations about the world in that > idiom... later Prolog captured that part of me (for a while) . > > > > > > -- > > ¡sıɹƎ ןıɐH ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ > > ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα > σώσω. > > > > > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. > / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,jIIX-vnSRSTFLjqcol2Pj_ZOSJLSn57vbTIaAhJ9P6UHqvMjJS--UBNRWu-Sxzhmyjt2j1qb3_YeIdj2sNtrjs8tfWVTG9hheCU7AZWpsdKjRMwFIqMa9k-Mbhc,&typo=1 > > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,3-fMzma3iL--s7KW1hsZ4W41wVxqtVdybnXokfuTHcbAM-bM8VWFvSiOoaoAWHIDNLrz2O7xntOLfPEszhJWw3uEWqRMXsGsBgHk4RaqIBm0heY,&typo=1 > > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,zhwRtMRzjTFOltd7ZZfYp2A7srpxSzAb7uptV65Xx1W02PiQOshg0dgl6bSMedjS4UYKXCV4uilGwnwRG5h-iAzUEnoRV3ZHAmAx52bXEqe8Bg,,&typo=1 > > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,afVYawFjkRXuyxIx99GuYbltSk1-IRzD6YitkNRZyO5UWDhswY3PSzQ9QmhR_CHz9sYXr8erwuHNExhrU9pFU-Cyqd-ow8YGJ-EbermfCVJcA533nv4,&typo=1 > > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / > ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > -- Nicholas S. 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