Re: [FRIAM] Thuram still happening?

[Nicholas Thompson]

Thanks, Jochen. I am on it.  N

On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 10:52 AM Jochen Fromm  wrote:

> It reminds me of this book:
> The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy
>
> https://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.
>
> 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

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

[Frank Wimberly]

Based on my experience, if you tell a Mexican that you changed your mind in
Spanish (me cambié la mente) they say, "you can't change your mind you can
only change your opinion/intention/etc."

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 2:39 PM glen  wrote:

> Just to follow up:
>
> Human cortical representations for reaching: mirror neurons for execution,
> observation, and imagery
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2045689/
>
> Functional anatomy of execution, mental simulation, observation, and verb
> generation of actions: A meta‐analysis
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6872039/
>
> Cortical activity during motor execution, motor imagery, and imagery-based
> online feedback
> https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0913697107
>
> Primary Motor and Sensory Cortex Activation during Motor Performance and
> Motor Imagery: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study
> https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/16/23/7688.full.pdf
>
> It's funny. When I read such documents, I have to make a concerted effort
> to read words like "mental" with charity. Obviously, it has no crisp
> meaning. Yet everyone speaks as if it does ... kinda like reading science
> fiction or learning a foreign language.
>
> On 2/17/23 08:11, glen wrote:
> > 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".
>
>
> --
> ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
>
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Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

[glen]

Just to follow up:

Human cortical representations for reaching: mirror neurons for execution, 
observation, and imagery
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2045689/

Functional anatomy of execution, mental simulation, observation, and verb 
generation of actions: A meta‐analysis
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6872039/

Cortical activity during motor execution, motor imagery, and imagery-based 
online feedback
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0913697107

Primary Motor and Sensory Cortex Activation during Motor Performance and Motor 
Imagery: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study
https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/16/23/7688.full.pdf

It's funny. When I read such documents, I have to make a concerted effort to read words 
like "mental" with charity. Obviously, it has no crisp meaning. Yet everyone 
speaks as if it does ... kinda like reading science fiction or learning a foreign 
language.

On 2/17/23 08:11, glen wrote:

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".



--
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ

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Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

[Steve Smith]

On 2/17/23 11:39 AM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Our family rule was, "Don't name anything  you aren't ready to take to 
the vet."


if by vet you mean "repairman" or "carwash/detailer" then I agree... I 
anthropomorphize *some* vehicles and when I take them to the mechanic I 
do it with a similar feeling that I take a pet to a vet.   But then I 
also have a certain kind of respect for a "pile of dirt" many here would 
not.   I suppose that I even consider many conformations of otherwise 
inanimate/low-agency things to have a "life of their own", meager as it 
might seem.   I once had a pile of sand near the entrance to my house 
which I put there for a project (so I *formed* the pile myself, taking 
some level of responsibility for it) by the time the project was 
complete, there was still a "mound" of sand which I was *loathe* to move 
(not just because I was lazy.   It was just big enough to attract my dog 
who *liked* to flop down on the top of it (all of 12" high?) and over 
the space of about a year, the dog and mound had co-evolved to be more 
like a *patch* of residually more sandy soil than the surrounding 
adobe-silt-clay-sandy soil only barely/hardly taller than the surrounds.


I felt like that "pile" and the dog and the pair of them together were 
an entity and I might even have named the pair if not for the fact I 
would have had to be "willing to take the pair to the vet" but in fact, 
I knew that would really confuse the vet if I did and most folks I 
know are confused when I try to explain this... maybe it would be easier 
if I would just give over and name the dog-sandpile complex?   Oh... the 
dog has since died and is buried nearby under a "pile of dirt" covered 
in "a pile of rocks" the rocks are there to keep the coyotes and 
ravens and humans from "trampling" the gravesite?


I'm probably just muddying this mudpile of dirt by trampling through it 
repeatedly?





On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 10:47 AM Steve Smith  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,
*

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

[Nicholas Thompson]

Our family rule was, "Don't name anything  you aren't ready to take to the
vet."

On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 10:47 AM Steve Smith  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 actua

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

[glen]

Great find. Thanks. I will read that.

I'm a bit worried how you went from "trampled dirt" to a "pile of trampled dirt". This is the target of DaveW's first question of composition and structure. "Dirt" is a 
mass noun, whereas a "pile of dirt" is not. Mass nouns like "data" are interesting, I think, for the very reason you're targeting. They seem to me to be qualities, not objects. 
When EricC mentioned "dirt at your feet", I implicitly *registered* a locality to the quality "dirt". There's some intuitive, natural to those of us with feet, boundary around 
"beneath your feet" versus "way the hell over there". So, you might hedge on "pile" with "local". But as fuzzy as the boundary of a pile is, the boundary 
around "local" is even fuzzier.

I hate the word "affordances". But it's as good as any, I guess, as a sign for that 
boundary-installing transition from quality to object. If I were born without legs and spent my life in a 
wheelchair, I suspect that boundary-installing registration of "dirt" to "dirt beneath your 
feet" would be VERY different than it is now, to me with my legs.

All this to emphasize, even more, that things like registration are *body* stuff, not 
whatever is meant by "mental stuff", much the same way as, say, self-organized 
criticality is body stuff, directly dependent on the shapes and sizes of the particles. 
I'd expect that what it is like to be a tiny chunk of quartz is different from what it is 
like to be a tiny chunk of hematite. And compositionally, I'd expect a carbon molecule 
sitting inside a diamond to *be* different from one sitting inside a lump of coal.

On 2/17/23 09:46, Steve Smith 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?



--
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ

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Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

[Steve Smith]

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 w

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

[glen]

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

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

[Prof David West]

Yes, I have experienced the "mental life" of the dirt at my feet (or rough 
equivalent). It is rather boring, given that the amount/degree of "psych" 
possessed by your average soil molecule is diminutive in the extreme. But 
the"psych" is there and it can be "sensed/perceived."

At somewhat greater degrees of organization, and hence greater 
'amounts/degrees' of "psych" that is present, people adjust their behavior in 
recognition. A devout Jain wearing a mask to avoid inhaling and killing 
insects, or sweeping the ground in front of themselves to avoid stepping on and 
killing other insects.

The Dreamtime experienced byAustralian aboriginals is rife with both the 
perception of, and adjustment of behavior in response to, the "psych" of 
inanimate and even geologic entities.

[Don't know if Heinlein, in *Stranger in a Strange Land*, was aware of or 
influenced by accounts of the Dreamtime, but his notions of "groking" so-called 
non-sentient things (like grass who's purpose was to be walked upon) and 
Martian "old ones" who were discorporate but very much 'alive and sentient, is 
not a bad description of human involvement in and interaction with the 
Dreamtime.]

Never understood how Vegans can sense/feel the pain of a cow being milked and 
therefore eschew dairy; but cannot hear the scream of a carrot being pureed for 
their morning health drink.

davew


On Thu, Feb 16, 2023, at 7:28 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> 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"?  O

Re: [FRIAM] Nick's Categories

[Steve Smith]

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  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 s