Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
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 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? > > > > > >On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 1:27 PM glen 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
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
Would you though?!? You certainly wouldn't stop stepping on it. On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 9:16 PM Frank Wimberly wrote: > "...how do you think your ways of acting in the world would change if you > adopted such a position?" > > I would stop shooting piles of dirt with a .30-06. I haven't done that > for 60+ years but it's intended as a* reductio ad absurdum* argument. > > --- > Frank C. Wimberly > 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, > Santa Fe, NM 87505 > > 505 670-9918 > Santa Fe, NM > > On Thu, Feb 16, 2023, 7:05 PM Eric Charles > 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? >> >> >> >> >> >> On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 1:27 PM glen 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
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
"...how do you think your ways of acting in the world would change if you adopted such a position?" I would stop shooting piles of dirt with a .30-06. I haven't done that for 60+ years but it's intended as a* reductio ad absurdum* argument. --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Thu, Feb 16, 2023, 7:05 PM Eric Charles 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? > > > > > > On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 1:27 PM glen 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
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
"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? On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 1:27 PM glen 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
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
A bit late to the party but here are my two cents about Dave's fundamental 6 questions:1) Is an *Experience* a whole or a composite? Rather a composite because a perception needs a perceiver which has always a subjective viewpoint. This includes a rating if the perceived object or action is good or bad for the perceiver.2) Does an *Experience* have duration? Yes, because the perceiver needs time to perceive and process an event3) [... snipped ...]4) Can *Experiences* be categorized? Certainly, most importantly in good or bad, in positive or negative, in pleasant or unpleasant6) Does *Experience* 'exist' apart from an experiencer? Probably not since there needs to be an observer or experiencer for which the experience is private and subjective. Rich Sutton says "in science, this is almost the definition of the subjective/objective distinction: that which is private to one person is subjective whereas that which can be observed by many, and replicated by others, is objective"http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/SubjectiveKnowledge.html6) Do *Experiences* persist? Perhaps as memories? I would say objective experience is when something can be measured by an instrument, while subjective experience needs a judge or jury. Take for example sports: the speed of downhill skiing can be measured, but the beauty of figure skating needs a jury. What we remember of subjective experience is the jury's rating.-J. Original message From: glen Date: 2/16/23 11:03 PM (GMT+01:00) To: friam@redfish.com Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories Well, I maintain significant skepticism about any coherent utility functions underlying the machines that do the discretization. The concept of utility seems to *need* a somewhat unified/singular, and perhaps exogenous, agency, which makes it circular reasoning in this context. (Note that I defend circular reasoning almost always and everywhere.)But the main point, going back to DaveW's questions:On 2/4/23 07:46, Prof David West wrote:> 1) Is an *Experience* a whole or a composite? > 2) Does an *Experience* have duration> 3) [... snipped ...]> 4) Can *Experiences* be categorized?> 5) Does *Experience* 'exist' apart from an experiencer?> 6) Do *Experiences* persist? Perhaps as memories?These are all questions brought (back) to the fore in the resurgence of panpsychism. There's simply no evidence-based reason to reject counter-intuitive concepts like electron consciousness or societal/galaxy consciousness. Anyone who's been caught up in any kind of mob *experiences* the mob's consciousness as something separate and higher order than your own. And if we can go up, why can't we go down, too?I also don't treat bricks as if they have the *same kind* of consciousness/experience that *I* have. Same with the cats. But I do tend to treat them as if they have *some kind* of experience/consciousness. The use of a brick as the example, can be another attempt at an (fallacious) incredulity argument. But using trees makes the argument interesting, especially superorganisms like aspen groves ... or maybe mycelia is an even better foil.Yes, we all project/impute the structure of our psyche on the things around us. But just because we do that does *not* mean those things don't have psychic structures of their own. By asking structural questions of experience monism, DaveW is probing exactly where such concepts are weakest. The questions deserve authentic attempts at answers.On 2/16/23 13:25, Steve Smith wrote:> > On 2/16/23 11:26 AM, glen 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.> > .. or more elaborately? "life *transduces* gradients and spectra (light, sound, chemistry) and then *thresholds* the results into what we would nominally call "discrete categories". The actual definition of those categories, the stimulus-response patterns are actually built upon (created under the shaping of) some kind of utility function (variations on survival in some sense). One step removed from this is to begin to "name" these categories and modulate and relate (adjectives and verbs) them to one another and from that build elaborate models of cause/effect that can be used to leverage our sensory inputs in pursuit of optimizing said utility functions? Semiotic theory probably already has a suite of terminology for this?> >> 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
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
Well, I maintain significant skepticism about any coherent utility functions underlying the machines that do the discretization. The concept of utility seems to *need* a somewhat unified/singular, and perhaps exogenous, agency, which makes it circular reasoning in this context. (Note that I defend circular reasoning almost always and everywhere.) But the main point, going back to DaveW's questions: On 2/4/23 07:46, Prof David West wrote: 1) Is an *Experience* a whole or a composite? 2) Does an *Experience* have duration 3) [... snipped ...] 4) Can *Experiences* be categorized? 5) Does *Experience* 'exist' apart from an experiencer? 6) Do *Experiences* persist? Perhaps as memories? These are all questions brought (back) to the fore in the resurgence of panpsychism. There's simply no evidence-based reason to reject counter-intuitive concepts like electron consciousness or societal/galaxy consciousness. Anyone who's been caught up in any kind of mob *experiences* the mob's consciousness as something separate and higher order than your own. And if we can go up, why can't we go down, too? I also don't treat bricks as if they have the *same kind* of consciousness/experience that *I* have. Same with the cats. But I do tend to treat them as if they have *some kind* of experience/consciousness. The use of a brick as the example, can be another attempt at an (fallacious) incredulity argument. But using trees makes the argument interesting, especially superorganisms like aspen groves ... or maybe mycelia is an even better foil. Yes, we all project/impute the structure of our psyche on the things around us. But just because we do that does *not* mean those things don't have psychic structures of their own. By asking structural questions of experience monism, DaveW is probing exactly where such concepts are weakest. The questions deserve authentic attempts at answers. On 2/16/23 13:25, Steve Smith wrote: On 2/16/23 11:26 AM, glen 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. .. or more elaborately? "life *transduces* gradients and spectra (light, sound, chemistry) and then *thresholds* the results into what we would nominally call "discrete categories". The actual definition of those categories, the stimulus-response patterns are actually built upon (created under the shaping of) some kind of utility function (variations on survival in some sense). One step removed from this is to begin to "name" these categories and modulate and relate (adjectives and verbs) them to one another and from that build elaborate models of cause/effect that can be used to leverage our sensory inputs in pursuit of optimizing said utility functions? Semiotic theory probably already has a suite of terminology for this? 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. I don't know if I am fully untangling this construction: I personally am drawn (intuitively) to panpsychism but more in abstract theory than in practice. I rarely treat a brick or stone as if it has any level of sentience, yet I do grant (impute) *something* like sentience onto more complex units. That would be especially life itself, and especially life at my personal scale such as a tree or a horse, while it might be easier to ignore whatever complex adaptivity a protozoa or an entire forest or coral reef or the biosphere as a whole might have (because it is out of my physical/time scale). But many artifacts in my world which I have an intimate relationship with, I tend to impute *some* sentience (or at least agency/identity) onto? House, Vehicles, Garden, some toolsets? -- ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . 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/
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
On 2/16/23 11:26 AM, glen 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. .. or more elaborately? "life *transduces* gradients and spectra (light, sound, chemistry) and then *thresholds* the results into what we would nominally call "discrete categories". The actual definition of those categories, the stimulus-response patterns are actually built upon (created under the shaping of) some kind of utility function (variations on survival in some sense). One step removed from this is to begin to "name" these categories and modulate and relate (adjectives and verbs) them to one another and from that build elaborate models of cause/effect that can be used to leverage our sensory inputs in pursuit of optimizing said utility functions? Semiotic theory probably already has a suite of terminology for this? 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. I don't know if I am fully untangling this construction: I personally am drawn (intuitively) to panpsychism but more in abstract theory than in practice. I rarely treat a brick or stone as if it has any level of sentience, yet I do grant (impute) *something* like sentience onto more complex units. That would be especially life itself, and especially life at my personal scale such as a tree or a horse, while it might be easier to ignore whatever complex adaptivity a protozoa or an entire forest or coral reef or the biosphere as a whole might have (because it is out of my physical/time scale). But many artifacts in my world which I have an intimate relationship with, I tend to impute *some* sentience (or at least agency/identity) onto? House, Vehicles, Garden, some toolsets? -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . 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/
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
I am on the THUAM zoom, Obama's Elf, if any body wants to talk to me.
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 10:23 AM 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 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
Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories
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
Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening?
It reminds me of this book:The Zoologist's Guide to the
Galaxyhttps://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646643/the-zoologists-guide-to-the-galaxy-by-arik-kershenbaum/-J.
Original message From: Nicholas Thompson
Date: 2/16/23 10:22 AM (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday
Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Cc: Mike Bybee
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening? DISCUSS:
If we were Martians sent to earth to study animal life EXCLUSIVE OF human life,
would we ever have come up with the idea of categories? What is there that
animals do that demands us to invent categories to explain their behavior?
Could we build a theory of animal life based solely on associations among
experiences... their experiences, not ours. nOn Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 6:14 PM
Nicholas Thompson wrote:Sorry, Dave. Will miss you.
You have been my most faithful recent companion in my quest for windmills to
topple. As for your double take, I probably used the wrong initials. I was
thinking about the AI thing which, I gather, Bing is now employing to get us
all advice on how to cure our lumbago, without ever having to bother with that
nasty Mayo Clinic website. I see why you want to substitute “cloud” for my link
metaphor. It’s easier to think of clouds probabilistically. Clouds are awfully
passive entities to serve in the way I need them to. Clouds are not, in the
first instance, things but visualizations of things. (They can themselves
become things, but Idon’t think you have anticipated that metaphoric
implication.) my ”links” are more deterministic than your clouds. I admit
that “probabilistic link” is a hard image to think, and therefore not a very
evocative metaphor. How about ”woodland path” Woodland pathways provide a more
dynamic image than “links”. Started by a rabbit, adopted by a coyote,
exploited by a deer, blundered into by a cow, woodland pathways flourish or
fail by use and by the attractiveness of the nodes where they converge or
cross. Each use favors future use and nodes become prominent not only for
their inherent attractiveness but because they are on the way to. attractive
nodes. Thus Sublette KS is a well traveled node not only because of the
tourist attraction of visiting the place where the 1917-18 ("spanish") flu got
its start, but also because it happens to be on the shortest route from NYC to
LA. . in thinking about this, we should focus on the animal case. Humans are
too complicated to be interesting. Also, I think we should focus on animals in
currently living in their "environment of evolutionary adaptiveness." I wish we
could entice Glen, and Mike, and Stephen to drop in on us around 11 tomorrow,if
only to show your faces. The node is
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
Nick From: Friam On Behalf Of Prof David
WestSent: Wednesday, February 15, 2023 1:24 PMTo: friam@redfish.comSubject: Re:
[FRIAM] Thuram still happening? I will be traveling to Wisconsin tomorrow and
miss Thuram. 2-cents: a word cloud might be a more useful metaphor than a
semantic net, just because of the formalisms employed in the latter. True a
cloud lacks explicit links, but such might be lightly sprinkled therein. Did a
huge double take at the last word in Nick's post. CBT, in one of the
communities I associate with, has a far different meaning than, I think, Nick
intended. And I would be 'they' used it first. davew On Wed, Feb 15, 2023, at
11:19 AM, 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
[FRIAM] Nick's Categories
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 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
Re: [FRIAM] what do philosophers call feline roadkill?
Oh yeah nick: What do pirates be doing for fun? Paaartying. har har har har. On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 9:55 AM Nicholas Thompson wrote: > A category. > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > 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/ > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . 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/
[FRIAM] what do philosophers call feline roadkill?
A category. -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . 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/
Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening?
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, > 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. > > Rushing, > > Nick > > From: Friam On Behalf Of Eric Charles > Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2023 10:29 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening? > > Well shoot. that would do it Thank you! > > > > On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 12:28 PM Frank Wimberly wrote: >> Today is Wednesday, isn't it? >> >> --- >> Frank C. Wimberly >> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, >> Santa Fe, NM 87505 >> >> 505 670-9918 >> Santa Fe, NM >> >> On Wed, Feb 15, 2023, 10:19 AM Eric Charles >> wrote: >>> Are the Thursday online meetings still happening? I missed a few weeks due >>> to work piling up meetings on, but I'm trying to log in now, and it looks >>> like the meeting hasn't started. >>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . >>> 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
Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening?
DISCUSS: If we were Martians sent to earth to study animal life EXCLUSIVE
OF human life, would we ever have come up with the idea of categories?
What is there that animals do that demands us to invent categories to
explain their behavior? Could we build a theory of animal life based
solely on associations among experiences... their experiences, not ours.
n
On Wed, Feb 15, 2023 at 6:14 PM Nicholas Thompson
wrote:
> Sorry, Dave. Will miss you. You have been my most faithful recent
> companion in my quest for windmills to topple. As for your double take, I
> probably used the wrong initials. I was thinking about the AI thing which,
> I gather, Bing is now employing to get us all advice on how to cure our
> lumbago, without ever having to bother with that nasty Mayo Clinic website.
>
>
> I see why you want to substitute “cloud” for my link metaphor. It’s easier
> to think of clouds probabilistically. Clouds are awfully passive
> entities to serve in the way I need them to. Clouds are not, in the
> first instance, things but visualizations of things. (They can themselves
> become things, but Idon’t think you have anticipated that metaphoric
> implication.) my ”links” are more deterministic than your clouds. I
> admit that “probabilistic link” is a hard image to think, and therefore not
> a very evocative metaphor. How about ”woodland path” Woodland pathways
> provide a more dynamic image than “links”. Started by a rabbit, adopted
> by a coyote, exploited by a deer, blundered into by a cow, woodland
> pathways flourish or fail by use and by the attractiveness of the nodes
> where they converge or cross. Each use favors future use and nodes become
> prominent not only for their inherent attractiveness but because they are
> on the way to. attractive nodes. Thus Sublette KS is a well traveled node
> not only because of the tourist attraction of visiting the place where the
> 1917-18 ("spanish") flu got its start, but also because it happens to be
> on the shortest route from NYC to LA. .
>
>
>
> in thinking about this, we should focus on the animal case. Humans are
> too complicated to be interesting. Also, I think we should focus on animals
> in currently living in their "environment of evolutionary adaptiveness."
>
>
>
> I wish we could entice Glen, and Mike, and Stephen to drop in on us
> around 11 tomorrow,if only to show your faces. The node is
> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 15, 2023 1:24 PM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening?
>
>
>
> I will be traveling to Wisconsin tomorrow and miss Thuram.
>
>
>
> 2-cents: a word cloud might be a more useful metaphor than a semantic net,
> just because of the formalisms employed in the latter. True a cloud lacks
> explicit links, but such might be lightly sprinkled therein.
>
>
>
> Did a huge double take at the last word in Nick's post. CBT, in one of the
> communities I associate with, has a far different meaning than, I think,
> Nick intended. And I would be 'they' used it first.
>
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 15, 2023, at 11:19 AM, 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.
>
>
>
> Rushing,
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam *On Behalf Of *Eric Charles
>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 15, 2023 10:29
