Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

[David Eric Smith]

Yeah.  What a guy.  I had the impression there wasn’t anything he could master.

Currently: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dabacon/ 
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/dabacon/>

Eric


> On Sep 24, 2021, at 6:09 AM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
> 
> I once had an office by Dave Bacon.  Years later, and for many years, he held 
> the title of software engineer at Google.   By the definitions of people 
> here, he's a scholar and a scientist.But in the weird (?) world of 
> Silicon Valley, he probably was able to make more money and be more 
> influential keeping that title.   The important thing was that he was Dave 
> Bacon.
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
> Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2021 1:51 PM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents
> 
> My comment about being a hack is *not* disparaging. It's a blunt fact and, to 
> the extent one can take pride in things, I take pride in it.
> 
> By "ontological", I mean attributed to the real/extant/actual world (avoiding 
> Peirce's distinction between real and extant) out there. I don't like the 
> plural "ontologies" at all. Instead of your language of "one's ontology", I 
> would prefer "one's model(s) of the world". Then epistemology would be the 
> study of those models and their fidelity to the world. The computer 
> technology sense of "ontology" is fairly close to "model of the world". So, I 
> don't like using the word in that context. But I must when I talk to those 
> people.
> 
> When I caution you against ontological commitment, I intend to talk about 
> commitment to things like monism, triadic sign-object-interpretant 
> thingamajiggies, and the ontological soundness of [in]advertents. When I 
> objected that inadvertents do not exist, I intended to pressure you into 
> distinguishing your model of the world from the world. If we can restrict 
> ourselves to never having *any* access to the real world out there, and only 
> talk about models of the world, then that will satisfy me. But to make it 
> clear that's what's happening, we might want to strip our language of those 
> words. Words like "world", "reality", "exists", etc. All we need discuss is 
> the plurality of models and how they compare.
> 
> If we do that, then we can say, let there be 2 models, M1 and M2. If M1⊂M2, 
> then the components, c∈M2 such that c∉M1 can be called "inadvertent" w.r.t. 
> M1. Or if, more generally, for any M1≠M2 such that c2∈M2, c2∉M1, c1∈M1, 
> c1∉M2, c1 is "inadvertent" w.r.t. M2 and c2 is inadvertent w.r.t. M1. We 
> could go further and talk about whether or not M1∪M2 is also a model? And if 
> it's not guaranteed that the arbitrary composition of 2 models yields a 
> model, then perhaps there are situations where 2 models might share a more 
> primitive (smaller, more compressed, more expressive) model. And we might be 
> able to ask, then, is there a "largest model", a model that expresses 
> everything all other models express.
> 
> 
> On 9/23/21 1:17 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>> I despair when people whom I respect  disparage themselves.  "If Glen is a 
>> hack," I think, "what kind of a worm am I?"  I look at it this way.  We are 
>> all good at somethings, bad at others.  To the extent our strengths and 
>> weaknesses can compensate for one another, then that is a good thing.   Each 
>> offers what he has to offer; each takes from the pile of offerings what he 
>> needs.  It's a kind  of intellectual communism.  
>> 
>> I do what to open a short side bar with you concerning "ontology."  I don't 
>> think the distinction between phenomenon and epiphenomenon was ever 
>> "ontological" with me.Nor is the distinction between advertents and 
>> inadvertents.  So that makes me worry that we are using the term in 
>> different senses.   My understanding is that one's ontology is everything 
>> that one assumes to be.   Ontologies can be explicit or inexplicit. So, I 
>> can have an ontology and not know it.  You, therefore, have some 
>> considerable power to convince me of what my ontology actual is.  To the 
>> extent my ontology is explicit, it is a monist experience monism that 
>> insists that we live in a world of signs ... experiences that signify other 
>> experiences, but I don't think that ontology commits me to a world of 
>> advertents and inadvertents. 
>> 
>> Now I have heard you software wizards speak from time to time of 
>> "ontologies&quo

Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

[David Eric Smith]

Hi Nick,

Sorry to be slow.  A dozen branches on the exchange so far in which it would be 
nice to engage, but I have to forego almost-all those.

There may not be much I can offer to the question you ask below, even by way of 
opinion.  My general take is that if somebody wants to build something, I say 
build away; I have no wish to be somebody who sits on the sidelines and carps.  

Our worlds, our frameworks, and our sense of what constitute argument are so 
different that even after the work is done, I don’t know that I could evaluate 
what is moved by it.  I can give anecdotal examples of why, but probably not 
more.  You have, as part of a string of things below, the remarkable sentence:

> Think about the relation between functions and purposes. 


I would have been incapable of using the definite article in that sentence.  I 
take it that you live in a world where both those words have definite meanings, 
and where you know what those meanings are.  Not only are such meanings 
available to you, but I gather that they are the most interesting meanings for 
you, and that your various projects always regress back to attach to them 
somehow.  That that should be so, for a psychologist, seems perfectly sensible.

For all that I have to be a spectator.  If we are using the word “purpose” in a 
poetic or literary sense, then sure, I sort-of know about as much about what 
might be the intended meaning as the next guy met on the street.  If I hear the 
word “function” used by a biologist, I probably don’t even know at a poetic or 
literary level what was intended, and my main reaction is a stress response of 
heightened vigilance  It is like the line in the old-series Star Trek where 
Kirk says something about freedom, and the big savage-man perks up and says 
“Freedom?!  It is our worship word; you will not speak it!”.  When a biologist 
uses the word “function”, it conjures up for me an image of a dragon sitting 
guard on his gold, because it is attached somehow to that most-sacred of all 
worship words: “evolution”. c.f.:

Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he 
could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the 
passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and 
two thousand.

I think you are born into that biological lineage, as innocently as you were 
born a New Englander.

In contrast, there is a narrow use of the word function that I will commit to, 
in which I can say just what I mean by it.  Probably few people or nobody else 
feels a need to use it in my sense (though it will be more familiar among 
engineers or physicists), and they would be willing to interact with my usage 
at a literary level.  But within my own frame of argument, I can be definite 
enough to mean a specific thing.  (Similar to what I can do for the word 
“emergence” in the specific sense of phase transition in thermodynamics.)  
There is no similarly definite usage I could attach to the word “purpose”, so 
there are ways of using it (as I could, internally, use “function”)  that are 
so far out of my reach.  

Yet for you, not only is it given that these terms have meaning; you can refer 
to _the_ relation between those meanings.  I dunno; it’s just a different style.

So in view of that, your wish to find out if there is a good dichotomy, between 
phenomena that are situated somehow along the line of a purpose, and those that 
are somehow out of that line as branches, effected by the progress down the 
main line, but only feeding back on it through (what?  Un-modeled environment 
effects?  Le Chatelier-type action/reaction oppositions? Ecosystem engineering 
or Niche Construction?— I can’t even know that, because I don’t know in your 
world how people think of when one is referring to a property of a model and 
when they just make declarations without talking about what is a model and what 
is something else) is one for which I will have to just witness the output and 
see if it seems insightful.

That doesn’t contribute, I know, and I apologize for the limitations.  But I 
hope the self-reporting above can trigger some sensitivity in you that when you 
just toss off a word in a sentence, there will be some words for which the 
givenness to you will be much larger stumbling blocks to others than it will 
for other words.  Figuring out which ones are the mines in that field can be 
slow work. 

Eric



> On Sep 24, 2021, at 2:18 AM,  
>  wrote:
> 
> Dear Glen and EricS
>  
> My friends are all too busy, so I have to turn to my frenemies for help. 
>  
> My palaver about epiphenomena grows out a much larger project: to identify 
> the resemblance among a bunch of concepts loosely related to the idea of  an 
> epiphenomenon.  Since the word has started to get us into trouble, I have 
> been searching around for another.  How about “inadvertent”?  To “advert” to 
> something is to orient toward it, to turn toward it, to point at it.  
> 

Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

[Marcus Daniels]

I once had an office by Dave Bacon.  Years later, and for many years, he held 
the title of software engineer at Google.   By the definitions of people here, 
he's a scholar and a scientist.But in the weird (?) world of Silicon 
Valley, he probably was able to make more money and be more influential keeping 
that title.   The important thing was that he was Dave Bacon.

-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2021 1:51 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

My comment about being a hack is *not* disparaging. It's a blunt fact and, to 
the extent one can take pride in things, I take pride in it.

By "ontological", I mean attributed to the real/extant/actual world (avoiding 
Peirce's distinction between real and extant) out there. I don't like the 
plural "ontologies" at all. Instead of your language of "one's ontology", I 
would prefer "one's model(s) of the world". Then epistemology would be the 
study of those models and their fidelity to the world. The computer technology 
sense of "ontology" is fairly close to "model of the world". So, I don't like 
using the word in that context. But I must when I talk to those people.

When I caution you against ontological commitment, I intend to talk about 
commitment to things like monism, triadic sign-object-interpretant 
thingamajiggies, and the ontological soundness of [in]advertents. When I 
objected that inadvertents do not exist, I intended to pressure you into 
distinguishing your model of the world from the world. If we can restrict 
ourselves to never having *any* access to the real world out there, and only 
talk about models of the world, then that will satisfy me. But to make it clear 
that's what's happening, we might want to strip our language of those words. 
Words like "world", "reality", "exists", etc. All we need discuss is the 
plurality of models and how they compare.

If we do that, then we can say, let there be 2 models, M1 and M2. If M1⊂M2, 
then the components, c∈M2 such that c∉M1 can be called "inadvertent" w.r.t. M1. 
Or if, more generally, for any M1≠M2 such that c2∈M2, c2∉M1, c1∈M1, c1∉M2, c1 
is "inadvertent" w.r.t. M2 and c2 is inadvertent w.r.t. M1. We could go further 
and talk about whether or not M1∪M2 is also a model? And if it's not guaranteed 
that the arbitrary composition of 2 models yields a model, then perhaps there 
are situations where 2 models might share a more primitive (smaller, more 
compressed, more expressive) model. And we might be able to ask, then, is there 
a "largest model", a model that expresses everything all other models express.


On 9/23/21 1:17 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> I despair when people whom I respect  disparage themselves.  "If Glen is a 
> hack," I think, "what kind of a worm am I?"  I look at it this way.  We are 
> all good at somethings, bad at others.  To the extent our strengths and 
> weaknesses can compensate for one another, then that is a good thing.   Each 
> offers what he has to offer; each takes from the pile of offerings what he 
> needs.  It's a kind  of intellectual communism.  
> 
> I do what to open a short side bar with you concerning "ontology."  I don't 
> think the distinction between phenomenon and epiphenomenon was ever 
> "ontological" with me.Nor is the distinction between advertents and 
> inadvertents.  So that makes me worry that we are using the term in different 
> senses.   My understanding is that one's ontology is everything that one 
> assumes to be.   Ontologies can be explicit or inexplicit. So, I can have an 
> ontology and not know it.  You, therefore, have some considerable power to 
> convince me of what my ontology actual is.  To the extent my ontology is 
> explicit, it is a monist experience monism that insists that we live in a 
> world of signs ... experiences that signify other experiences, but I don't 
> think that ontology commits me to a world of advertents and inadvertents. 
> 
>  Now I have heard you software wizards speak from time to time of 
> "ontologies", and I am guessing that the word has some added spin for you 
> that it does not for me.   So, I would like to straighten that out, if we 
> could.  When you say that you fear the distinction is ontological with me, 
> what exactly is it that you fear? 
> 
> By the way, as a behaviorist, I am inclined to more to make the error that 
> human most enterprizes are inadvertent, then to make the error that 
> biological ones are advertent.  

-- 
"Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
☤>$ uǝlƃ


.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. .

Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

[uǝlƃ ☤ $]

My comment about being a hack is *not* disparaging. It's a blunt fact and, to 
the extent one can take pride in things, I take pride in it.

By "ontological", I mean attributed to the real/extant/actual world (avoiding 
Peirce's distinction between real and extant) out there. I don't like the 
plural "ontologies" at all. Instead of your language of "one's ontology", I 
would prefer "one's model(s) of the world". Then epistemology would be the 
study of those models and their fidelity to the world. The computer technology 
sense of "ontology" is fairly close to "model of the world". So, I don't like 
using the word in that context. But I must when I talk to those people.

When I caution you against ontological commitment, I intend to talk about 
commitment to things like monism, triadic sign-object-interpretant 
thingamajiggies, and the ontological soundness of [in]advertents. When I 
objected that inadvertents do not exist, I intended to pressure you into 
distinguishing your model of the world from the world. If we can restrict 
ourselves to never having *any* access to the real world out there, and only 
talk about models of the world, then that will satisfy me. But to make it clear 
that's what's happening, we might want to strip our language of those words. 
Words like "world", "reality", "exists", etc. All we need discuss is the 
plurality of models and how they compare.

If we do that, then we can say, let there be 2 models, M1 and M2. If M1⊂M2, 
then the components, c∈M2 such that c∉M1 can be called "inadvertent" w.r.t. M1. 
Or if, more generally, for any M1≠M2 such that c2∈M2, c2∉M1, c1∈M1, c1∉M2, c1 
is "inadvertent" w.r.t. M2 and c2 is inadvertent w.r.t. M1. We could go further 
and talk about whether or not M1∪M2 is also a model? And if it's not guaranteed 
that the arbitrary composition of 2 models yields a model, then perhaps there 
are situations where 2 models might share a more primitive (smaller, more 
compressed, more expressive) model. And we might be able to ask, then, is there 
a "largest model", a model that expresses everything all other models express.


On 9/23/21 1:17 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> I despair when people whom I respect  disparage themselves.  "If Glen is a 
> hack," I think, "what kind of a worm am I?"  I look at it this way.  We are 
> all good at somethings, bad at others.  To the extent our strengths and 
> weaknesses can compensate for one another, then that is a good thing.   Each 
> offers what he has to offer; each takes from the pile of offerings what he 
> needs.  It's a kind  of intellectual communism.  
> 
> I do what to open a short side bar with you concerning "ontology."  I don't 
> think the distinction between phenomenon and epiphenomenon was ever 
> "ontological" with me.Nor is the distinction between advertents and 
> inadvertents.  So that makes me worry that we are using the term in different 
> senses.   My understanding is that one's ontology is everything that one 
> assumes to be.   Ontologies can be explicit or inexplicit. So, I can have an 
> ontology and not know it.  You, therefore, have some considerable power to 
> convince me of what my ontology actual is.  To the extent my ontology is 
> explicit, it is a monist experience monism that insists that we live in a 
> world of signs ... experiences that signify other experiences, but I don't 
> think that ontology commits me to a world of advertents and inadvertents. 
> 
>  Now I have heard you software wizards speak from time to time of 
> "ontologies", and I am guessing that the word has some added spin for you 
> that it does not for me.   So, I would like to straighten that out, if we 
> could.  When you say that you fear the distinction is ontological with me, 
> what exactly is it that you fear? 
> 
> By the way, as a behaviorist, I am inclined to more to make the error that 
> human most enterprizes are inadvertent, then to make the error that 
> biological ones are advertent.  

-- 
"Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
☤>$ uǝlƃ


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Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

[thompnickson2]

Glen, 

I despair when people whom I respect  disparage themselves.  "If Glen is a 
hack," I think, "what kind of a worm am I?"  I look at it this way.  We are all 
good at somethings, bad at others.  To the extent our strengths and weaknesses 
can compensate for one another, then that is a good thing.   Each offers what 
he has to offer; each takes from the pile of offerings what he needs.  It's a 
kind  of intellectual communism.  

I do what to open a short side bar with you concerning "ontology."  I don't 
think the distinction between phenomenon and epiphenomenon was ever 
"ontological" with me.Nor is the distinction between advertents and 
inadvertents.  So that makes me worry that we are using the term in different 
senses.   My understanding is that one's ontology is everything that one 
assumes to be.   Ontologies can be explicit or inexplicit. So, I can have an 
ontology and not know it.  You, therefore, have some considerable power to 
convince me of what my ontology actual is.  To the extent my ontology is 
explicit, it is a monist experience monism that insists that we live in a world 
of signs ... experiences that signify other experiences, but I don't think that 
ontology commits me to a world of advertents and inadvertents. 

 Now I have heard you software wizards speak from time to time of "ontologies", 
and I am guessing that the word has some added spin for you that it does not 
for me.   So, I would like to straighten that out, if we could.  When you say 
that you fear the distinction is ontological with me, what exactly is it that 
you fear? 

By the way, as a behaviorist, I am inclined to more to make the error that 
human most enterprizes are inadvertent, then to make the error that biological 
ones are advertent.  



Nick


Nick Thompson
thompnicks...@gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2021 1:40 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

Well, EricS is a scholar, which means he will respond responsibly and with 
content. I, by contrast, am a hack and will respond irresponsibly and 
off-the-cuff. 8^D

I *do* think the project worthwhile, but only if you abandon any ontological or 
metaphysical commitment to the distinction between advertent and inadvertent. 
For example, there seems to me a clear difference between exaptation and the 
unintended usage of a computer program. Similarly, I think there's a clear 
difference between exaptation and new use approvals or patents for drugs.

As best I can tell, the difference is the lack of an Intelligent Designer for 
evolution ... or with less triggering language, the lack of a "small model" (by 
contrast with Rosen's "largest model"). When Pfizer discovers a drug (mostly by 
accident ... but a sweat-laden accident), it's a very purposeful, intelligent, 
perspective laden thing (mostly money, but some honest Do Gooding interwoven). 
When a team of programmers builds a [soft|hard]ware service, it's an 
intelligently designed thing.

When the amorphous cloud of nothingness that is "selection pressure" builds a 
trait, it is not an intelligently designed thing, it MAY NOT EVEN BE an 
optimized thing ... where "otpimized" means perspective-laden, 
objective-focused, etc. I'm not saying it *is not* an optimized thing. I'm 
saying it may not be. That's why I encourage you to abandon the ontological 
commitment.

This sort of thing is discussed quite a bit in the open-ended evolution 
literature, which you may be more familiar with than I am. So, if you would 
play *that* game, I think you'd make some progress.

On 9/23/21 10:18 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> Dear Glen and EricS
> 
>  
> 
> My friends are all too busy, so I have to turn to my frenemies for help.
> 
>  
> 
> My palaver about epiphenomena grows out a much larger project: to 
> identify the resemblance among a bunch of concepts loosely related to the 
> idea of  an epiphenomenon.  Since the word has started to get us into 
> trouble, I have been searching around for another.  How about “inadvertent”?  
> To “advert” to something is to orient toward it, to turn toward it, to point 
> at it.  INadvertent consequences are those of an action toward which the 
> action itself did not point.  Since, in my lingo, the goal of an action is 
> that toward which it points, we are speaking of the consequences of an action 
> which were not among that action’s goals.   These we will call 
> “inadvertents”, “which is ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers.”  Now as 
> the concept of exaptation makes clear, whether a trait is an advertent or an 
> inadvertent depends on the context of its design.  Thus a trait evolved 
> inadvertently 

Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

[uǝlƃ ☤ $]

Well, EricS is a scholar, which means he will respond responsibly and with 
content. I, by contrast, am a hack and will respond irresponsibly and 
off-the-cuff. 8^D

I *do* think the project worthwhile, but only if you abandon any ontological or 
metaphysical commitment to the distinction between advertent and inadvertent. 
For example, there seems to me a clear difference between exaptation and the 
unintended usage of a computer program. Similarly, I think there's a clear 
difference between exaptation and new use approvals or patents for drugs.

As best I can tell, the difference is the lack of an Intelligent Designer for 
evolution ... or with less triggering language, the lack of a "small model" (by 
contrast with Rosen's "largest model"). When Pfizer discovers a drug (mostly by 
accident ... but a sweat-laden accident), it's a very purposeful, intelligent, 
perspective laden thing (mostly money, but some honest Do Gooding interwoven). 
When a team of programmers builds a [soft|hard]ware service, it's an 
intelligently designed thing.

When the amorphous cloud of nothingness that is "selection pressure" builds a 
trait, it is not an intelligently designed thing, it MAY NOT EVEN BE an 
optimized thing ... where "otpimized" means perspective-laden, 
objective-focused, etc. I'm not saying it *is not* an optimized thing. I'm 
saying it may not be. That's why I encourage you to abandon the ontological 
commitment.

This sort of thing is discussed quite a bit in the open-ended evolution 
literature, which you may be more familiar with than I am. So, if you would 
play *that* game, I think you'd make some progress.

On 9/23/21 10:18 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> Dear Glen and EricS
> 
>  
> 
> My friends are all too busy, so I have to turn to my frenemies for help.
> 
>  
> 
> My palaver about epiphenomena grows out a much larger project: to identify 
> the resemblance among a bunch of concepts loosely related to the idea of  an 
> epiphenomenon.  Since the word has started to get us into trouble, I have 
> been searching around for another.  How about “inadvertent”?  To “advert” to 
> something is to orient toward it, to turn toward it, to point at it.  
> INadvertent consequences are those of an action toward which the action 
> itself did not point.  Since, in my lingo, the goal of an action is that 
> toward which it points, we are speaking of the consequences of an action 
> which were not among that action’s goals.   These we will call 
> “inadvertents”, “which is ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers.”  Now as 
> the concept of exaptation makes clear, whether a trait is an advertent or an 
> inadvertent depends on the context of its design.  Thus a trait evolved 
> inadvertently in the contest of competition at the kill (the pseudo=penis of 
> the female hyena) can become an
> advertent within the context of dominance display. 
> 
>  
> 
> The concept gnaws at me, these days, because so much about old age is 
> “inadvertent”.  That was George William’s theory of senescence: that the ills 
> of old age are the inadvertent consequences of the adaptations of the young.  
> Inadvertency seems to be a key to so many confusions in psychology, 
> philosophy, and even biology.   Think about the distinction between 
> “intension” and “extension”.  (Poor Lady Astor!)  Think about 
> “intentionality” generally.  Think about spandrels and exaptation (= 
> secondary advertency).  Think about the relation between functions and 
> purposes.  Think about the distinction between effects and side effects of 
> medicines.  This fundamental idea is everywhere in our thought.  Think about 
> the indeterminacy of metaphors.  Think about all the things a newly minted 
> program can do that it's designer did not intend it to do. 
> 
>  
> 
> Now, the piece I want to write  and which you (over your dead bodies) have 
> been helping me write, will hold a Wittgensteinian “family” reunion among all 
> these instances of inadvertency and try to discover if they are all of a 
> piece and if there is anything useful to be said about them all. 
> 
>  
> 
> My first question of you, two, is, Do you see this project as useful? Do you 
> see a benefit in such family reunions?  Would you find such a piece, once 
> written, to be of any use in your own thinking? The question is of importance 
> to me because, cantankerous as you sometimes are, I find your opinions on 
> such matters to be of great use, and I fear that your opinion will be that 
> such projects are  nugatory.  “Words, words, WORDS!”, you will say.  This 
> will be a disappointment to me because two of the pieces of writing I am 
> proudest of are those that showed the concepts of gene and adaptation 
> belonged to the family of intensional concepts in psychology and those that 
> showed that D.S.Wilson’s concept of trait group selection was not an example 
> of /selection/ at all, but a run-of-the-mill instance of quantitative 
> /inheritance/.  In other words, I 

[FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

[thompnickson2]

Dear Glen and EricS

 

My friends are all too busy, so I have to turn to my frenemies for help. 

 

My palaver about epiphenomena grows out a much larger project: to identify
the resemblance among a bunch of concepts loosely related to the idea of  an
epiphenomenon.  Since the word has started to get us into trouble, I have
been searching around for another.  How about "inadvertent"?  To "advert" to
something is to orient toward it, to turn toward it, to point at it.
INadvertent consequences are those of an action toward which the action
itself did not point.  Since, in my lingo, the goal of an action is that
toward which it points, we are speaking of the consequences of an action
which were not among that action's goals.   These we will call
"inadvertents", "which is ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers."  Now as
the concept of exaptation makes clear, whether a trait is an advertent or an
inadvertent depends on the context of its design.  Thus a trait evolved
inadvertently in the contest of competition at the kill (the pseudo=penis of
the female hyena) can become an advertent within the context of dominance
display.  

 

The concept gnaws at me, these days, because so much about old age is
"inadvertent".  That was George William's theory of senescence: that the
ills of old age are the inadvertent consequences of the adaptations of the
young.  Inadvertency seems to be a key to so many confusions in psychology,
philosophy, and even biology.   Think about the distinction between
"intension" and "extension".  (Poor Lady Astor!)  Think about
"intentionality" generally.  Think about spandrels and exaptation (=
secondary advertency).  Think about the relation between functions and
purposes.  Think about the distinction between effects and side effects of
medicines.  This fundamental idea is everywhere in our thought.  Think about
the indeterminacy of metaphors.  Think about all the things a newly minted
program can do that it's designer did not intend it to do.  

 

Now, the piece I want to write  and which you (over your dead bodies) have
been helping me write, will hold a Wittgensteinian "family" reunion among
all these instances of inadvertency and try to discover if they are all of a
piece and if there is anything useful to be said about them all.  

 

My first question of you, two, is, Do you see this project as useful? Do you
see a benefit in such family reunions?  Would you find such a piece, once
written, to be of any use in your own thinking? The question is of
importance to me because, cantankerous as you sometimes are, I find your
opinions on such matters to be of great use, and I fear that your opinion
will be that such projects are  nugatory.  "Words, words, WORDS!", you will
say.  This will be a disappointment to me because two of the pieces of
writing I am proudest of are those that showed the concepts of gene and
adaptation belonged to the family of intensional concepts in psychology and
those that showed that D.S.Wilson's concept of trait group selection was not
an example of selection at all, but a run-of-the-mill instance of
quantitative inheritance.  In other words, I think  there is some value in
rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and you do not.  

 

In case anybody wants to discuss any of this  in vPerson I am going to try
to be at friam between 9 and 11 tomorrow.  

 

All the best, 

 

Nick 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nick Thompson

thompnicks...@gmail.com  

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

 

Nick Thompson

thompnicks...@gmail.com  

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 


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