Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[glen∈ℂ]

Heh, it was Homotopy Type Theory I was accusing of being hoity-toity. 8^) But I 
think it's reasonable to argue that W. was pretty hoity-toity, as this story 
implies:

  When Feyerabend Met Wittgenstein
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL600Mafzf0

Disclosure: Feyerabend is my favorite philosopher. Whether W. was *too* hoity-toity or 
not is another issue. But he certainly pushed the envelope in his response to Logik not 
being adequate for a bachelors: "If I am not worth your making an exception for me 
even in some STUPID details then I may as well go to Hell directly; and if I am worth it 
and you don't do it then—by God—you might go there." ... reminds me of some of the 
people I met while I was at the SFI. 8^)

On 12/11/19 8:08 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

Well, he elucidated the limitations of language including the concept that 
words produced by one human to describe an experience cannot cause another to 
have that same experience.  Not too hoity-toity.



FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Prof David West]

Nick style larding follows:


On Thu, Dec 12, 2019, at 5:15 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> I think the effableness is a red herring. "Last night I ate spaghetti" 
> doesn't fully and completely explain exactly what happened last night... but 
> we all agree that I used words to describe a thing that is not "ineffable". 
> So far, no argument has been offered to demonstrate that Dave's conversation 
> with God is any more or less effable than my having eaten spaghetti
> 
> **[DW-->in the case of speaking with God, I completely agree with you. In the 
> second example, I was at least attempting to depict an 'X' that was truly 
> ineffable, in that even asserting a label like 'Experience' is falsehood. I 
> will leave that for another time and consider your other comments. <---dw]**
> 
> 
> Absent an argument to that effect, we are begging the question by taking it 
> as given that the two differ. I think the more interesting issue that Dave's 
> example brings up is our original issue regarding monism, in its relation to 
> the question "what is real?" 
> 
> **[DW -->May I restate as a question of what criteria are sufficient to 
> assert that something is not real? In a previous post you asserted that 
> something is not real if it has no "effects;" and you seem to reiterate that 
> assertion in your remarks about a Deist god having no current effects. Are 
> "effects" the criteria, and if so how do we utilize them to determine the 
> reality of 'X'? <-- dw]**
> 
> We all agree that that Dave could have been having a conversation with 
> something real or something not real, right? We can call the other option 
> "imaginary" or "illusory" or whatever else we want to call it, but we 
> recognize that people sometimes have conversations with those types of 
> conversational partners, so it is a live possibility.
> 
> I said in prior emails, we are in-particular talking about "monism" in 
> contrast to mind-matter dualism (and all variants of that particular 
> dualism), meaning that we reject that mental things and matter things are 
> made of two different stuffs. 
> 
> **[DW -->This is a key point that I would really appreciate a good monist to 
> explain to me. Using a metaphor of a computer, there seems to be one kind of 
> "stuff," the ones and zeros (high and low voltages) flowing about a set of 
> circuits. But, any given sequence of ones and zeros can 'effect' a given 
> state of the collective circuitry, and any given sequence of states can 
> effect more comprehensible constructs like the screensaver of Bears Ears that 
> appears behind this email window. The graphic is, of course, but ones and 
> zeros. Ones and zeros is the "stuff" of all. What status have the 
> "constructs" up to and including the images and icons? <--dw]**
> 
> So Dave is talking to God. Whether he is talking to something that is 
> "mental" or something "physical" is a post-hoc judgement. That is, we 
> discover that based on future experience, not based on the initial 
> experience, which is neutral with regards to that distinction. What later 
> experiences will allow us to determine if the conversational partner is real? 
> That is hard to specify when we are discussing a deity with ambiguous 
> properties, but the method must be in principle very similar to how we would 
> confirm or reject the reality of any other conversational partner. How do you 
> determine when a child has an imaginary friend versus a real friend? You look 
> for other consequences of the conversational partner. Ultimately we look for 
> convergent agreement by anyone who honestly inquires into the existence of 
> the conversational partner (i.e., the long term convergence / 
> pattern-stability, referenced earlier in the conversation).
> 
> **[DW -->I would argue that we have a body of precisely this kind of 
> evidence, convergent agreement/pattern-stability, with regard "honest 
> inquiries." I make this assertion with regard "goddness" but would make it 
> emphatically with regard the "mystical otherness." That evidence does not, 
> however, seem to result in the assignation of "Real" status. So something 
> else must be in play. What? <--dw]**
> 
>  The only thing we can't allow - because it is internally incoherent - is for 
> there to exist a "real" thing with "no consequences" that we could 
> investigate. So the "Deist" God, the instigator with no current effects, is 
> off the table a priori, because that is a description of a thing that doesn't 
> exist --- and also because Dave couldn't have had a conversation with that. 
> We could only be discussing a conception of God that can be interacted with 
> to certain ends, which means that some tractable means of converging opinions 
> one way or the other is possible. 
> 
> **[DW -->Whose opinions? Those on the FRIAM list? The public at large? 
> Something akin to the "scientific community?" If the latter, why do not 
> alchemists — in the general sense of the term, not the lead into gold 
> 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Prof David West]

Hello Nick,

Re previous post about speaking to god and ineffable experience:

I was not attempting to assert anything, merely ask questions. Specifically, 
questions regarding Eric's assertion denying ineffability and "defining" the 
Real as that which has effects.

So I proposed two scenarios involving a "Thing" that had measurable, sometimes 
predictable, effects and asked if thir "effect ability" gave them ontological 
status of "Real" despite the fact that they were ineffable or, in the case of 
God, 'effed' inaccurately.

The question might be generalized to one of the relationship between what we 
can know (epistemology) and what is real (ontology). A subtext to this question 
is a concern: as we elaborate our epistemology, and make it rigorous, do we 
arbitrarily, in my view, void segments of ontology? Is this a bad thing? 

Now to one of your lard-ettes:
"**Hang on, Dave. We are starting to talk as if ANYTHING is effable."** 

I don't know about you, but I would never make such an assertion, nor propose 
any example of something being "effed." I agree with Korzibski's dictum, "The 
Map is not the Territory!" And I am perfectly happy, all my "Experience" is 
compatible with, and my adopted philosophy of Hermeneutics is consistent with 
that dictum. 

I have no desire to reduce ambiguity. I thrive on constant change. I have no 
need to replace metaphor with lexical terms. For me there is no "Truth" — even 
if defined as a provisional agreement, ala Peirce. The "approximately effable" 
linguistic constructions we utilize to attribute "meaning" to our experiences 
are all equally false-to-fact, but pragmatically useful to the extent they keep 
us fed and amused.

Comments on other elements of larding await the reading of the paper you sent.

davew


On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, at 8:23 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi, Dave, and thanks, Frank. See Larding Below:

> 

> Nick Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

> thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

> 

> 

> 


> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 11, 2019 2:58 AM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

> 

> 

> Last summer I spoke with God. The effects were profound and obvious to all. 
> Many of the effects, measured with MRI and encephalographic devices, were 
> quantifiable. I spoke of my experience, as best as I could, recognizing that 
> whatever words I used told but part of the story. Other's experience of me 
> changed as well - they uniformly and consistently experience me, not as the 
> fun loving drunken whoring party guy, but only as the pious jackass that was 
> the inevitable and most profound effect of my experience.

> **[NST===>] My Larder is only half working on this computer. **

> 

> God is therefore real and extant?

> **[NST===>] Does God “prove out”? In order to answer that question, we would 
> have to have a conception of God that could possibly “prove out”. I say that 
> God is the Wizard in Wizard of Oz. An old guy who hides in a closet and 
> manipulates our experience with giant levers. That conception is probably 
> “prove-out-able” but probably doesn’t prove out. Or, ringed around with 
> sufficient special meanings, it could become circular, and therefore not 
> “prove-out-able”. So,**

> 

> But wait ...

> 

> I did not really speak with God. That word and all the other words, and the 
> framing of the effects, piety replacing ribaldry, came after the fact, a post 
> hoc rationalization/interpretation/articulation of "something." And, of 
> course, the form of all those words and effects is but

> **[NST===>] Why “but”, Dave? It’s an artifact of culture. It’s an experience 
> that proves out only with in the framework of a culture. As long as you stay 
> within the culture, it proves out pretty good. When you moved away from home, 
> it didn’t prove out. **

>  an artifact of the culture (and maybe the Jungian collective unconscious) 
> within which I was raised.

> 

> There was "An Experience;" but even that label, those two words, is 
> false-to-fact.

> **[NST===>] Stipulated**

> What "Was" had no bounds, in time or space and, in fact continues (and 
> predated) the implied bounded context inherent in the meaning of 'an 
> experience'. There is an implied relation between the "Experience" and an 
> ego, an "I:" 1) the "Experience" was apart from "I," 2) "I" was part of the 
> "Experience," 3) "I" perceived/sensed the "Experience." None of these implied 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Steven A Smith]

FriAMsketeers and Correspondents en Ineffablia -

I am traveling in Sweden right now where every other young man I meet is
named "Torbjorn"  which roughly translates to "Thunder-Bear" or more
specifically "god-of-thunder/bear".   In every case, I actually do feel
as if I have spoken with a God and a Bear... it is in the ineffable
quality that separates our cultures and our generations (they are mostly
of the X/Z), and the things that are hard to say the same way in both
Swedish or English or as we mostly use "Svenglish". 

My geneology says I am from Germany/Poland/Scotland but my DNA says I am
95% Scandanavian and 5% North African...  not a hint of Neanderthal, and
I do not believe anyone has sequenced the Sasquatch/Yeti, so how would
we know about that?   I did see a cousin to the Loch Nesse monster
yesterday, but it was a sculpture made of scrap Iron, or that was how I
interpreted it, it might have been Ouroborous herself.   Perhaps the
fondness for adding wild mushrooms to the borscht here has something to
do with all of these visions?

Merle has arranged the meetings here regarding the acute implications of
the Anthropocene... nominally the Climate and Complexity Science.
Stephen and Stu were the "headliners" from the Santa Fe contingent . I
call it The END of the Anthropocene (if/when/as we drive off a cliff of
our own making) or "A Grand Unified Theory of Endogenous Existential
Threats" (tongue planted obliquely in cheek).   We did do our part to
rush the upheaval of sequestered Dino-carbon into the atmosphere to the
tune of 3-4 tonne each, so go figure?   I also stopped in at Parliament
to channel Greta last Friday...   I turned the "AT" in my "Make America
Great Again" cap upside down so it now reads "Make America GreTA Again"
which seems ever more grounded and hopeful than what we have been up to
these past few years... 

I also have been meeting with Steen Rasmussen in Copenhagen (an early
ALife colleague some of you may know) and one of the founders of
Mapillery in Maimo.   Both live as if they want to prevent an Abrupt End
of the Anthropocene, as many here seem to do.   Public transportation is
very good and with the apparently warmed climate, what should be dead of
winter feels more like a cold Springtime.   Bicycles in the cold rain
everywhere.   Next I move forward to Amsterdam where I will visit our
own Jenny Quillien and the current correspondent Dave West where we will
either speak to God, a Bear, or perhaps just Eat Spaghetti...  in the
reflection of the shadow of the presence of the spirit of Christopher
Alexander.  Throughout the entire visit I expect there will be an
ineffability he would call "the quality without a name".   We will
probably not speak of it, and rather speak "of Cabbages and Kings" or
Humpty Trumpty and all his horses and women who will patently not put
anything together again.

Jet lag leads to sleep deprivation which in fact seems to enhance my
awareness the ineffable.  And FriAMPhilosophy only adds to that.

Carry On!

- Steve

On 12/12/19 5:15 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> I think the effableness is a red herring. "Last night I ate spaghetti"
> doesn't fully and completely explain exactly what happened last
> night... but we all agree that I used words to describe a thing that
> is not "ineffable". So far, no argument has been offered to
> demonstrate that Dave's conversation with God is any more or less
> effable than my having eaten spaghetti. Absent an argument to that
> effect, we are begging the question by taking it as given that the two
> differ. I think the more interesting issue that Dave's example brings
> up is our original issue regarding monism, in its relation to the
> question "what is real?" 
>
> We all agree that that Dave could have been having a conversation with
> something real or something not real, right? We can call the other
> option "imaginary" or "illusory" or whatever else we want to call it,
> but we recognize that people sometimes have conversations with those
> types of conversational partners, so it is a live possibility.
>
> I said in prior emails, we are in-particular talking about "monism" in
> contrast to mind-matter dualism (and all variants of that particular
> dualism), meaning that we reject that mental things and matter things
> are made of two different stuffs. 
>
> So Dave is talking to God. Whether he is talking to something that is
> "mental" or something "physical" is a post-hoc judgement. That is, we
> discover that based on future experience, not based on the initial
> experience, which is neutral with regards to that distinction. What
> later experiences will allow us to determine if the conversational
> partner is real? That is hard to specify when we are discussing a
> deity with ambiguous properties, but the method must be in principle
> very similar to how we would confirm or reject the reality of any
> other conversational partner. How do you determine when a child has an
> imaginary friend versus a real friend? 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Eric Charles]

I think the effableness is a red herring. "Last night I ate spaghetti"
doesn't fully and completely explain exactly what happened last night...
but we all agree that I used words to describe a thing that is not
"ineffable". So far, no argument has been offered to demonstrate that
Dave's conversation with God is any more or less effable than my having
eaten spaghetti. Absent an argument to that effect, we are begging the
question by taking it as given that the two differ. I think the more
interesting issue that Dave's example brings up is our original issue
regarding monism, in its relation to the question "what is real?"

We all agree that that Dave could have been having a conversation with
something real or something not real, right? We can call the other option
"imaginary" or "illusory" or whatever else we want to call it, but we
recognize that people sometimes have conversations with those types of
conversational partners, so it is a live possibility.

I said in prior emails, we are in-particular talking about "monism" in
contrast to mind-matter dualism (and all variants of that particular
dualism), meaning that we reject that mental things and matter things are
made of two different stuffs.

So Dave is talking to God. Whether he is talking to something that is
"mental" or something "physical" is a post-hoc judgement. That is, we
discover that based on future experience, not based on the initial
experience, which is neutral with regards to that distinction. What later
experiences will allow us to determine if the conversational partner is
real? That is hard to specify when we are discussing a deity with ambiguous
properties, but the method must be in principle very similar to how we
would confirm or reject the reality of any other conversational partner.
How do you determine when a child has an imaginary friend versus a real
friend? You look for other consequences of the conversational partner.
Ultimately we look for convergent agreement by anyone who honestly inquires
into the existence of the conversational partner (i.e., the long term
convergence / pattern-stability, referenced earlier in the conversation).
The only thing we can't allow - because it is internally incoherent - is
for there to exist a "real" thing with "no consequences" that we could
investigate. So the "Deist" God, the instigator with no current effects, is
off the table a priori, because that is a description of a thing that
doesn't exist --- and also because Dave couldn't have had a conversation
with that. We could only be discussing a conception of God that can be
interacted with to certain ends, which means that some tractable means of
converging opinions one way or the other is possible.

As such: Dave's conversation with God is not in-kind difference from John's
seeing a bear in the woods: Both are equally effable/ineffable. Both have
the same question about the reality of the thing experienced. Both can be
subjected to the same types of analyses (I offered Peircian, Jamesian, or
Holtian options regarding the bear).


---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist
American University - Adjunct Instructor



On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 3:17 PM uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:

> The thing being left out of this still seems, to me, to be constructive vs
> ... what? ... analytical explanation. Your larger document beats around
> that bush quite a bit, I think. But I don't think it ever names/tackles the
> point explicitly.
>
> When you say things like "explanations are based on prior explanations"
> and "depends on the understandings that exist between speaker and
> audience", you're leaving out THE fundamental ontology atop which it's all
> built ... the building of the experimental apparatus. Feynman's pithy
> aphorism applies: What I cannot create, I do not understand.
>
> Explanations facilitate replication. They tell you *how* to do the trick
> yourself. Descriptions can be explanatory, of course. But they can also be
> non-explanatory. And some explanations are more facilitating than others.
> (E.g. I can write out some obtuse math and print it on paper or I can hand
> you a floppy disk with some Matlab code on it.)
>
> But the foundation is that we all have the same basic hardware. And
> *that's* what explanations are built upon. Change the hardware and your
> explanation becomes mere description. ... E.g. take a big hit of LSD and
> many explanations become mere descriptions. The evolutionary biological
> content of your paper (as well as Figure 1.2[†]) seems like it's just
> crying out for something like "construction". Reading it feels like
> watching someone struggle for a word that's on the "tip of their tongue".
>
>
> [†] In particular, if I replace "is the model for" with *generates*, I get
> some sort of Necker cube flipping feeling.
>
> On 12/11/19 11:23 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> > [... the thought experiment being explaining an eraser falling behind a
> book ...]
> > Working through 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Frank Wimberly]

Well, he elucidated the limitations of language including the concept that
words produced by one human to describe an experience cannot cause another
to have that same experience.  Not too hoity-toity.

---
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 11:51 AM uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:

> I'm not. Wittgenstein was very cool. But he wasn't a *builder*. (... as
> far as I know. I'd be happy to be wrong.) The thing that (in my ignorant
> opinion) distinguishes people like Wittgenstein from people like Gödel, von
> Neumann, Feynman, etc. ... even Penrose with the tilings and such, is that
> they *build* things. Until the hoity-toity results from the unification
> theorem come percolating down to morons like me, I'll continue treating
> constructive proofs as better and more real/existing than classical proofs.
>
> On 12/11/19 10:44 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> > I'm surprised no one has quoted Wittgenstein:
> >
> > Wovon Mann nicht sprechen kann daruber muss Mann schweigen.
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC 
> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[uǝlƃ ☣]

The thing being left out of this still seems, to me, to be constructive vs ... 
what? ... analytical explanation. Your larger document beats around that bush 
quite a bit, I think. But I don't think it ever names/tackles the point 
explicitly. 

When you say things like "explanations are based on prior explanations" and 
"depends on the understandings that exist between speaker and audience", you're 
leaving out THE fundamental ontology atop which it's all built ... the building 
of the experimental apparatus. Feynman's pithy aphorism applies: What I cannot 
create, I do not understand.

Explanations facilitate replication. They tell you *how* to do the trick 
yourself. Descriptions can be explanatory, of course. But they can also be 
non-explanatory. And some explanations are more facilitating than others. (E.g. 
I can write out some obtuse math and print it on paper or I can hand you a 
floppy disk with some Matlab code on it.)

But the foundation is that we all have the same basic hardware. And *that's* 
what explanations are built upon. Change the hardware and your explanation 
becomes mere description. ... E.g. take a big hit of LSD and many explanations 
become mere descriptions. The evolutionary biological content of your paper (as 
well as Figure 1.2[†]) seems like it's just crying out for something like 
"construction". Reading it feels like watching someone struggle for a word 
that's on the "tip of their tongue".


[†] In particular, if I replace "is the model for" with *generates*, I get some 
sort of Necker cube flipping feeling.

On 12/11/19 11:23 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> [... the thought experiment being explaining an eraser falling behind a book 
> ...]
> Working through thought-experiments like the one above leads us to conclude 
> that all descriptions, particularly satisfying ones, are inevitably 
> explanatory and that all explanations are descriptive. And yet, you cannot 
> explain something until you have something to explain – so all explanations 
> must be based on prior descriptions. The only reasonable conclusion, if you 
> take both of these claims at face value, is that all explanations are based 
> on prior explanations! The distinction between description and explanation 
> concerns their position in an argument, not their objectivity or subjectivity 
> in some enduring sense.  Whether a statement is explanatory or descriptive 
> depends upon the understandings that exist between the speaker and his or her 
> audience at the time the statement is made. /Descriptions are explanations 
> that the speaker and the audience take to be true for the purpose of seeking 
> further explanations/.[1] <#_ftn1> 


-- 
☣ uǝlƃ


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[uǝlƃ ☣]

I'm not. Wittgenstein was very cool. But he wasn't a *builder*. (... as far as 
I know. I'd be happy to be wrong.) The thing that (in my ignorant opinion) 
distinguishes people like Wittgenstein from people like Gödel, von Neumann, 
Feynman, etc. ... even Penrose with the tilings and such, is that they *build* 
things. Until the hoity-toity results from the unification theorem come 
percolating down to morons like me, I'll continue treating constructive proofs 
as better and more real/existing than classical proofs.

On 12/11/19 10:44 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> I'm surprised no one has quoted Wittgenstein:
> 
> Wovon Mann nicht sprechen kann daruber muss Mann schweigen.

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Frank Wimberly]

I'm surprised no one has quoted Wittgenstein:

Wovon Mann nicht sprechen kann daruber muss Mann schweigen.

---
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 11:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:

> It seems like you're asking a question with the  at the end. But it's
> unclear to me what the question is.  If the question is:
>
> Can a thing-occurance exist/be-real even if any attempt to describe it in
> any language will be a false description?
>
> Phrased that way, it's unclear how anyone could say "No". I enjoy quoting
> Gödel's interpretation of what von Neumann said [†] to demonstrate one way
> that could happen:
>
> von Neumann: But in the complicated parts of formal logic it is always one
> order of magnitude harder to tell what an object can do than to produce the
> object.
>
> Gödel: However, what von Neumann perhaps had in mind appears more clearly
> from the universal Turing machine. There it might be said that the complete
> description of its behavior is infinite because, in view of the
> non-existence of a decision procedure predicting its behavior, the complete
> description could be given only by an enumeration of all instances. Of
> course this presupposes that only decidable descriptions are considered to
> be complete descriptions, but this is in line with the finitistic way of
> thinking. The universal Turing machine, where the ratio of the two
> complexities is infinity, might then be considered to be a limiting case of
> other finite mechanisms. This immediately leads to von Neumann's conjecture.
>
> By this reasoning, it's relatively easy to see why *any* description will
> fall short of the thing described, at least in this levels-of-types
> conception.
>
>
>
> [†] Or what Burks says Gödel said anyway -- Theory of Self-Reproducing
> Automata
>
> On 12/11/19 1:58 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> >
> > Last summer I spoke with God. The effects were profound and obvious to
> all. Many of the effects, measured with MRI and encephalographic devices,
> were quantifiable. I spoke of my experience, as best as I could,
> recognizing that whatever words I used told but part of the story. Other's
> experience of me changed as well - they uniformly and consistently
> experience me, not as the fun loving drunken whoring party guy, but only as
> the pious jackass that was the inevitable and most profound effect of my
> experience.
> >
> > God is therefore real and extant?
> >
> > But wait ...
> >
> > I did not really speak with God. That word and all the other words, and
> the framing of the effects, piety replacing ribaldry, came after the fact,
> a post hoc rationalization/interpretation/articulation of "something." And,
> of course, the form of all those words and effects is but an artifact of
> the culture (and maybe the Jungian collective unconscious) within which I
> was raised.
> >
> > There was "An Experience;" but even that label, those two words, is
> false-to-fact. What "Was" had no bounds, in time or space and, in fact
> continues (and predated) the implied bounded context inherent in the
> meaning of 'an experience'. There is an implied relation between the
> "Experience" and an ego, an "I:" 1) the "Experience" was apart from "I," 2)
> "I" was part of the "Experience," 3) "I" perceived/sensed the
> "Experience."  None of these implied relations are accurate or complete, or
> even differentiable from each other.
> >
> > There was a Real, Existing, Thing. "It" was effectual; in that patterns
> of brain waves and detectable activity in different parts of the brain
> before and after "It" are measurable and comparable. Behavior and
> experience — from the "inside" — was altered dramatically, in the sense of
> the "color," the filtering lens, the 'fit" of interpretations of individual
> experiences is dramatically altered. Experience — of others on the
> "outside" —  is altered as well, although often not expressible beyond,
> "there's something different about you, can't put my finger on it, but ... "
> >
> > Not only was the "Thing" effectual, it is, within statistical limits,
> possible to predict the nature and degree of the effects that ensue from
> "Thing-Occurrence." Moreover, it is possible to establish an "experimental
> context" whereby others can "experience" the "Thing" and thereby confirm
> the prediction of effects.
> >
> > "Thing-Occurrence" ---> partially predictable, measurable (sometimes
> quantifiable) effects ---> "Thing is Real/Existing?
> >
> > Despite being, in every way ineffable —  in that no words capture its
> totality and any words used, in any naturally occurring human language, are
> false-to-fact.
> >
> > 
> >
> > dave west
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, at 6:10 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> >> Ok I'm going to try to do a better take on the "ineffable" issue. I
> want to start by 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[uǝlƃ ☣]

It seems like you're asking a question with the  at the end. But it's 
unclear to me what the question is.  If the question is:

Can a thing-occurance exist/be-real even if any attempt to describe it in any 
language will be a false description?

Phrased that way, it's unclear how anyone could say "No". I enjoy quoting 
Gödel's interpretation of what von Neumann said [†] to demonstrate one way that 
could happen:

von Neumann: But in the complicated parts of formal logic it is always one 
order of magnitude harder to tell what an object can do than to produce the 
object.

Gödel: However, what von Neumann perhaps had in mind appears more clearly from 
the universal Turing machine. There it might be said that the complete 
description of its behavior is infinite because, in view of the non-existence 
of a decision procedure predicting its behavior, the complete description could 
be given only by an enumeration of all instances. Of course this presupposes 
that only decidable descriptions are considered to be complete descriptions, 
but this is in line with the finitistic way of thinking. The universal Turing 
machine, where the ratio of the two complexities is infinity, might then be 
considered to be a limiting case of other finite mechanisms. This immediately 
leads to von Neumann's conjecture.

By this reasoning, it's relatively easy to see why *any* description will fall 
short of the thing described, at least in this levels-of-types conception.



[†] Or what Burks says Gödel said anyway -- Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata

On 12/11/19 1:58 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> 
> Last summer I spoke with God. The effects were profound and obvious to all. 
> Many of the effects, measured with MRI and encephalographic devices, were 
> quantifiable. I spoke of my experience, as best as I could, recognizing that 
> whatever words I used told but part of the story. Other's experience of me 
> changed as well - they uniformly and consistently experience me, not as the 
> fun loving drunken whoring party guy, but only as the pious jackass that was 
> the inevitable and most profound effect of my experience.
> 
> God is therefore real and extant?
> 
> But wait ...
> 
> I did not really speak with God. That word and all the other words, and the 
> framing of the effects, piety replacing ribaldry, came after the fact, a post 
> hoc rationalization/interpretation/articulation of "something." And, of 
> course, the form of all those words and effects is but an artifact of the 
> culture (and maybe the Jungian collective unconscious) within which I was 
> raised.
> 
> There was "An Experience;" but even that label, those two words, is 
> false-to-fact. What "Was" had no bounds, in time or space and, in fact 
> continues (and predated) the implied bounded context inherent in the meaning 
> of 'an experience'. There is an implied relation between the "Experience" and 
> an ego, an "I:" 1) the "Experience" was apart from "I," 2) "I" was part of 
> the "Experience," 3) "I" perceived/sensed the "Experience."  None of these 
> implied relations are accurate or complete, or even differentiable from each 
> other.
> 
> There was a Real, Existing, Thing. "It" was effectual; in that patterns of 
> brain waves and detectable activity in different parts of the brain before 
> and after "It" are measurable and comparable. Behavior and experience — from 
> the "inside" — was altered dramatically, in the sense of the "color," the 
> filtering lens, the 'fit" of interpretations of individual experiences is 
> dramatically altered. Experience — of others on the "outside" —  is altered 
> as well, although often not expressible beyond, "there's something different 
> about you, can't put my finger on it, but ... "
> 
> Not only was the "Thing" effectual, it is, within statistical limits, 
> possible to predict the nature and degree of the effects that ensue from 
> "Thing-Occurrence." Moreover, it is possible to establish an "experimental 
> context" whereby others can "experience" the "Thing" and thereby confirm the 
> prediction of effects.
> 
> "Thing-Occurrence" ---> partially predictable, measurable (sometimes 
> quantifiable) effects ---> "Thing is Real/Existing?
> 
> Despite being, in every way ineffable —  in that no words capture its 
> totality and any words used, in any naturally occurring human language, are 
> false-to-fact.
> 
> 
> 
> dave west
> 
> 
> On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, at 6:10 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
>> Ok I'm going to try to do a better take on the "ineffable" issue. I want 
>> to start by admitting that there is some sense in which ANYTHING I want to 
>> describe is never fully described by the words I use, in some reasonable use 
>> of the word "fully." If I see a turtle, and I tell you that I saw a turtle, 
>> I haven't provided you with a full description of exactly what the 
>> experience was like. So, I'm willing to admit that... but I'm not convinced 
>> there is anything deeper than that about 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Frank Wimberly]

LIKE.  I like Dave's comments but I reply to make sure that Nick sees them.

---
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 2:59 AM Prof David West  wrote:

>
> Last summer I spoke with God. The effects were profound and obvious to
> all. Many of the effects, measured with MRI and encephalographic devices,
> were quantifiable. I spoke of my experience, as best as I could,
> recognizing that whatever words I used told but part of the story. Other's
> experience of me changed as well - they uniformly and consistently
> experience me, not as the fun loving drunken whoring party guy, but only as
> the pious jackass that was the inevitable and most profound effect of my
> experience.
>
> God is therefore real and extant?
>
> But wait ...
>
> I did not really speak with God. That word and all the other words, and
> the framing of the effects, piety replacing ribaldry, came after the fact,
> a post hoc rationalization/interpretation/articulation of "something." And,
> of course, the form of all those words and effects is but an artifact of
> the culture (and maybe the Jungian collective unconscious) within which I
> was raised.
>
> There was "An Experience;" but even that label, those two words, is
> false-to-fact. What "Was" had no bounds, in time or space and, in fact
> continues (and predated) the implied bounded context inherent in the
> meaning of 'an experience'. There is an implied relation between the
> "Experience" and an ego, an "I:" 1) the "Experience" was apart from "I," 2)
> "I" was part of the "Experience," 3) "I" perceived/sensed the
> "Experience."  None of these implied relations are accurate or complete, or
> even differentiable from each other.
>
> There was a Real, Existing, Thing. "It" was effectual; in that patterns of
> brain waves and detectable activity in different parts of the brain before
> and after "It" are measurable and comparable. Behavior and experience —
> from the "inside" — was altered dramatically, in the sense of the "color,"
> the filtering lens, the 'fit" of interpretations of individual experiences
> is dramatically altered. Experience — of others on the "outside" —  is
> altered as well, although often not expressible beyond, "there's something
> different about you, can't put my finger on it, but ... "
>
> Not only was the "Thing" effectual, it is, within statistical limits,
> possible to predict the nature and degree of the effects that ensue from
> "Thing-Occurrence." Moreover, it is possible to establish an "experimental
> context" whereby others can "experience" the "Thing" and thereby confirm
> the prediction of effects.
>
> "Thing-Occurrence" ---> partially predictable, measurable (sometimes
> quantifiable) effects ---> "Thing is Real/Existing?
>
> Despite being, in every way ineffable —  in that no words capture its
> totality and any words used, in any naturally occurring human language, are
> false-to-fact.
>
> 
>
> dave west
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, at 6:10 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
>
> Ok I'm going to try to do a better take on the "ineffable" issue. I
> want to start by admitting that there is some sense in which ANYTHING I
> want to describe is never fully described by the words I use, in some
> reasonable use of the word "fully." If I see a turtle, and I tell you that
> I saw a turtle, I haven't provided you with a full description of exactly
> what the experience was like. So, I'm willing to admit that... but I'm not
> convinced there is anything deeper than that about Nick's inability to
> express his "feelings" to his granddaughter... and with that out of the way
> I will return to what I think is the broader issue.
>
> Real / existing things have effects. That is what it is to be real / to
> exist. If someone wants to talk about something that exists but have no
> effects, they are wandering down an rabbit hole with no bottom, and might
> as well be talking about noiseless sounds or blue-less blue.
>
> The pragmatic maxim tells us: " Consider what effects... we conceive the
> object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is
> the whole of our conception of the object." So anything we conceive of
> is, in some sense, a cluster of effects, and so everything "real" is *in
> principle* conceivable. And to the extent anything can be expressed
> adequately - whether by words or any other means of expression - concepts
> can be expressed, and so anything real can be expressed.
>
> However, i'm not sure the effability is really the important part. The
> bigger question was about epistemology and ontology. But the pragmatic
> maxim covers that as well. Things that have effects are *in principle* we
> may presume there are many, many effects that we don't yet have the means
> to detect, but anything that has effects could, under some 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Prof David West]

Last summer I spoke with God. The effects were profound and obvious to all. 
Many of the effects, measured with MRI and encephalographic devices, were 
quantifiable. I spoke of my experience, as best as I could, recognizing that 
whatever words I used told but part of the story. Other's experience of me 
changed as well - they uniformly and consistently experience me, not as the fun 
loving drunken whoring party guy, but only as the pious jackass that was the 
inevitable and most profound effect of my experience.

God is therefore real and extant?

But wait ...

I did not really speak with God. That word and all the other words, and the 
framing of the effects, piety replacing ribaldry, came after the fact, a post 
hoc rationalization/interpretation/articulation of "something." And, of course, 
the form of all those words and effects is but an artifact of the culture (and 
maybe the Jungian collective unconscious) within which I was raised.

There was "An Experience;" but even that label, those two words, is 
false-to-fact. What "Was" had no bounds, in time or space and, in fact 
continues (and predated) the implied bounded context inherent in the meaning of 
'an experience'. There is an implied relation between the "Experience" and an 
ego, an "I:" 1) the "Experience" was apart from "I," 2) "I" was part of the 
"Experience," 3) "I" perceived/sensed the "Experience." None of these implied 
relations are accurate or complete, or even differentiable from each other.

There was a Real, Existing, Thing. "It" was effectual; in that patterns of 
brain waves and detectable activity in different parts of the brain before and 
after "It" are measurable and comparable. Behavior and experience — from the 
"inside" — was altered dramatically, in the sense of the "color," the filtering 
lens, the 'fit" of interpretations of individual experiences is dramatically 
altered. Experience — of others on the "outside" — is altered as well, although 
often not expressible beyond, "there's something different about you, can't put 
my finger on it, but ... "

Not only was the "Thing" effectual, it is, within statistical limits, possible 
to predict the nature and degree of the effects that ensue from 
"Thing-Occurrence." Moreover, it is possible to establish an "experimental 
context" whereby others can "experience" the "Thing" and thereby confirm the 
prediction of effects.

"Thing-Occurrence" ---> partially predictable, measurable (sometimes 
quantifiable) effects ---> "Thing is Real/Existing? 

Despite being, in every way ineffable — in that no words capture its totality 
and any words used, in any naturally occurring human language, are 
false-to-fact.



dave west


On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, at 6:10 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok I'm going to try to do a better take on the "ineffable" issue. I want 
> to start by admitting that there is some sense in which ANYTHING I want to 
> describe is never fully described by the words I use, in some reasonable use 
> of the word "fully." If I see a turtle, and I tell you that I saw a turtle, I 
> haven't provided you with a full description of exactly what the experience 
> was like. So, I'm willing to admit that... but I'm not convinced there is 
> anything deeper than that about Nick's inability to express his "feelings" to 
> his granddaughter... and with that out of the way I will return to what I 
> think is the broader issue.
> 
> Real / existing things have effects. That is what it is to be real / to 
> exist. If someone wants to talk about something that exists but have no 
> effects, they are wandering down an rabbit hole with no bottom, and might as 
> well be talking about noiseless sounds or blue-less blue. 
> 
> The pragmatic maxim tells us: " Consider what effects... we conceive the 
> object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is 
> the whole of our conception of the object." So anything we conceive of is, in 
> some sense, a cluster of effects, and so everything "real" is _in principle_ 
> conceivable. And to the extent anything can be expressed adequately - whether 
> by words or any other means of expression - concepts can be expressed, and so 
> anything real can be expressed.
> 
> However, i'm not sure the effability is really the important part. The bigger 
> question was about epistemology and ontology. But the pragmatic maxim covers 
> that as well. Things that have effects are _in principle_ we may presume 
> there are many, many effects that we don't yet have the means to detect, but 
> anything that has effects could, under some circumstances, be detectable. So 
> the limits of what _is_ are the same as the limits of what can in principle 
> be known. Postulation of things that are existing but which can't, under any 
> circumstances, be known is internally contradictory. 
> 
> Was that a better reply? It felt more thorough at least...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ---
> Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
> Department of Justice - Personnel 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Eric Charles]

Ok I'm going to try to do a better take on the "ineffable" issue. I
want to start by admitting that there is some sense in which ANYTHING I
want to describe is never fully described by the words I use, in some
reasonable use of the word "fully." If I see a turtle, and I tell you that
I saw a turtle, I haven't provided you with a full description of exactly
what the experience was like. So, I'm willing to admit that... but I'm not
convinced there is anything deeper than that about Nick's inability to
express his "feelings" to his granddaughter... and with that out of the way
I will return to what I think is the broader issue.

Real / existing things have effects. That is what it is to be real / to
exist. If someone wants to talk about something that exists but have no
effects, they are wandering down an rabbit hole with no bottom, and might
as well be talking about noiseless sounds or blue-less blue.

The pragmatic maxim tells us: " Consider what effects... we conceive the
object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is
the whole of our conception of the object." So anything we conceive of is,
in some sense, a cluster of effects, and so everything "real" is *in
principle* conceivable. And to the extent anything can be expressed
adequately - whether by words or any other means of expression - concepts
can be expressed, and so anything real can be expressed.

However, i'm not sure the effability is really the important part. The
bigger question was about epistemology and ontology. But the pragmatic
maxim covers that as well. Things that have effects are *in principle* we
may presume there are many, many effects that we don't yet have the means
to detect, but anything that has effects could, under some circumstances,
be detectable. So the limits of what *is* are the same as the limits of
what can in principle be known. Postulation of things that are existing but
which can't, under any circumstances, be known is internally contradictory.

Was that a better reply? It felt more thorough at least...






---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist
American University - Adjunct Instructor



On Tue, Dec 10, 2019 at 7:36 PM uǝlƃ ☣  wrote:

> I intend to respond to both Nick's and EricC's comments about "faith in
> convergence" at some point. But I've been caught up in other things. So, in
> the meantime, ...
>
> "Irony and Outrage," part 2: Why Colbert got serious — and why Donald
> Trump isn't funny
>
> https://www.salon.com/2019/12/08/irony-and-outrage-part-2-why-colbert-got-serious-and-why-donald-trump-isnt-funny/
>
> There are 2 interesting tangents touching this thread:
>
> 1) Re: ineffability -- "But also that the mere logic of the humorous
> juxtaposition eludes him — the notion that you do not issue the argument,
> you create a juxtaposition that invites the audience to issue an argument."
>
> I'll argue that the content of a (good) joke is *ineffable*. The whole
> purpose of the joke teller is to communicate something without actually
> *saying* it. If you explain a joke, it breaks the joke.
>
> And 2) Re: limits to epistemology limiting ontology -- "That, to me, is
> illustrative of that broader point I try to make about how when a threat is
> salient to you, it becomes hard to enter the state of play, ..."
>
> I *would* argue that pluralists will be more able to enter the "state of
> play" Goldthwaite describes (and I've described on this list a number of
> times as variations of "suspension of disbelief", "empathetic listening",
> and being willing to play games others set up) than monists. I think
> monists should TEND to be more committed to their way of thinking than
> pluralists ... more willing to believe their own or others' brain farts. At
> least in my case, being a pluralist means, in part, that I refuse to
> *commit* to ontological assertions of any kind. I'll play with various
> types of monism just as readily as I'll play with 3-tupleisms ... or
> 17-tupleisms. I think that's what makes me a simulant of passing
> competence. You just need to tell me *what* -ism you want to simulate.
>
> As such, it seems that maybe Dave's got the cart before the horse. It's
> the failure of ontology that's mandating voids in epistemology. We should
> work toward robust *ways of knowing* and loosen up a bit on whatever it is
> we think we know. I say "would argue" of course because, being totally
> ignorant of philosophy, I'm probably just confused about everything.
>
> On 12/10/19 12:43 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> > Both your anecdotes support, my assertion that lots of things and lots
> of experiences are ineffable. This does not mean they are not "expressible"
> nor "communicable, merely that they cannot be expressed with words nor
> communicated using words.
> >
> > Words fail! Indeed!
> >
> > Entire languages fail. Entire epistemological philosophies fail.
> >
> > You "rendered" the ineffable to your grand-daughter, but you did NOT
> 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[uǝlƃ ☣]

I intend to respond to both Nick's and EricC's comments about "faith in 
convergence" at some point. But I've been caught up in other things. So, in the 
meantime, ...

"Irony and Outrage," part 2: Why Colbert got serious — and why Donald Trump 
isn't funny
https://www.salon.com/2019/12/08/irony-and-outrage-part-2-why-colbert-got-serious-and-why-donald-trump-isnt-funny/

There are 2 interesting tangents touching this thread:

1) Re: ineffability -- "But also that the mere logic of the humorous 
juxtaposition eludes him — the notion that you do not issue the argument, you 
create a juxtaposition that invites the audience to issue an argument."

I'll argue that the content of a (good) joke is *ineffable*. The whole purpose 
of the joke teller is to communicate something without actually *saying* it. If 
you explain a joke, it breaks the joke.

And 2) Re: limits to epistemology limiting ontology -- "That, to me, is 
illustrative of that broader point I try to make about how when a threat is 
salient to you, it becomes hard to enter the state of play, ..."

I *would* argue that pluralists will be more able to enter the "state of play" 
Goldthwaite describes (and I've described on this list a number of times as 
variations of "suspension of disbelief", "empathetic listening", and being 
willing to play games others set up) than monists. I think monists should TEND 
to be more committed to their way of thinking than pluralists ... more willing 
to believe their own or others' brain farts. At least in my case, being a 
pluralist means, in part, that I refuse to *commit* to ontological assertions 
of any kind. I'll play with various types of monism just as readily as I'll 
play with 3-tupleisms ... or 17-tupleisms. I think that's what makes me a 
simulant of passing competence. You just need to tell me *what* -ism you want 
to simulate.

As such, it seems that maybe Dave's got the cart before the horse. It's the 
failure of ontology that's mandating voids in epistemology. We should work 
toward robust *ways of knowing* and loosen up a bit on whatever it is we think 
we know. I say "would argue" of course because, being totally ignorant of 
philosophy, I'm probably just confused about everything.

On 12/10/19 12:43 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> Both your anecdotes support, my assertion that lots of things and lots of 
> experiences are ineffable. This does not mean they are not "expressible" nor 
> "communicable, merely that they cannot be expressed with words nor 
> communicated using words.
> 
> Words fail! Indeed!
> 
> Entire languages fail. Entire epistemological philosophies fail.
> 
> You "rendered" the ineffable to your grand-daughter, but you did NOT render 
> them to me with words. You you words to circumscribe and speak about an 
> experience of a kind that you believe I might have first hand, equally 
> ineffable, experience of and that your indirect words would move me to make a 
> connection. At best, your words, your language, worked like a game of 
> Charades or Pictionary as a means of limning the space wherein I might find 
> my own experience of like kind.
> 
> A "mystic" engages an experience that is ineffable, and then utters 
> thousands, book volumes worth, of words attempting to limn a space wherein 
> you too might engage the same experience — or, if an optimist, might awaken 
> in you a recognition of what you have already experienced. More Charades and 
> Pictionary — spewing forth words ABOUT the experience; never expressing, in 
> words or language, the experience itself.
> 
> At least some ineffable experiences can be expressed directly using a 
> language of voltages and wave forms, (Neurotheology), but not words or 
> mathematical symbols or such-based languages.
> 
> The question remains: why does a failure of epistemology mandate voids in 
> ontology?
> 
> I love your etymological daffiness, I share it.
> 
> The definitions cited reflect an arrogance of the "enlightened" in the notion 
> "too great for words." A lot of mystics make this, what I believe to be, 
> error, attempting to grant an ontological status of REAL that does not follow 
> from the simple fact that it cannot be expressed in words.
> 
> And another sidenote — something might be "ineffable" simply because you are 
> not allowed to use a word, ala Carlin's seven dirty words, or the "N-Word" or 
> the "C-Word."

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Prof David West]

 we do 
> when we don’t know which way to eff. 

> 

> By the way. My parents (as you can guess) were in publishing and editing and 
> were very wordy people. My mother died quite young (or so it seems from the 
> perspective of 82). She struggled with words all her life, tried to do too 
> much with them. It was years before my father could put an epigraph on her 
> grave. It lay there for years, just the brass plate, with her name and dates. 
> Relatives commented when they visited the family plot. Then, the year we went 
> to bury my aunt, there it was, finally, etched in the brass, my father’s 
> comment on our 37 years together as a family: “**Words Fail!” **

> ** **

> Nick

> * *

> 

> Nick Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

> thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

> 

> 

> 


> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 10, 2019 12:45 AM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

> 

> Ineffable!

> 

> There are many things that "cannot be expressed in words."

> 

> There are many experiences "that cannot be expressed in words."

> 

> Perhaps the "words" simply do not exist - or exist at the moment — the 
> vocabulary problem you mention.

> 

> Perhaps the constructs of the language — copulas / the verb "to be" in 
> English, for example — prevent accurate assertions, or mandate unresolvable 
> paradox.

> 

> Perhaps no language with appropriate expressive power is extant. (Unless 
> Nick, in his researchers, has rediscovered the "language of the birds" that 
> Huggin and Munnin used to converse with Odin.)

> 

> Perhaps a 'process of investigative scrutiny' other than the one we commonly 
> use to talk about common things is required; i.e. we simply have yet to 
> invent the appropriate "science."

> 

> Why do limitations in epistemology mandate exclusions from ontology?

> 

> davew

> 

> 

> 

> On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, at 7:40 PM, Eric Charles wrote:

>> Ineffable? 

>> 

>> F it!

>> 

>> I will try for a more thorough reply later, but the short version is that no 
>> inherently ineffable things exist, because "exist" and "real" are awkward 
>> ways we talk about the object of those concepts that will sustain the 
>> scrutiny of investigation. For that process to happen, we have to be able to 
>> talk about the thing being investigated, i.e. it must be in-principle 
>> effable. If we lack the necessary vocabulary at the moment, that's a 
>> different problem. 

>> 

>> On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 12:03 PM  wrote:

>>> Dave,

>>> 

>>> Thanks for this; and thanks, Frank, for forwarding it, else I should never 
>>> have seen it. 

>>> 

>>> Well, that’s what I get for labeling my Monism. Once labeled, monisms 
>>> become dualisms. Let me just say that the experiencer of an experience is 
>>> simply another experience. 

>>> 

>>> Isn’t admitting to the ineffable throwing in the towel?

>>> 

>>> Nick

>>> 

>>> Nick Thompson

>>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

>>> Clark University

>>> thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

>>> 

>>> 

>>> 

>>> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly

>>> *Sent:* Monday, December 9, 2019 6:20 AM

>>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 

>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

>>> 

>>> I think we've gotten somewhere.

>>> 

>>> Frank

>>> ---

>>> Frank Wimberly

>>> 

>>> My memoir:

>>> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

>>> 

>>> My scientific publications:

>>> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

>>> 

>>> Phone (505) 670-9918

>>> 

>>> On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 4:08 AM Prof David West  wrote:

>>>> Nick,

>>>> 

>>>> No need to be ill at ease — I do not mean illusory in, or with, any 
>>>> sense/degree/intimation of dualism.

>>>> 

>>>> Ultimately, either: I am more of a monist than thou. Or, you are equally a 
>>>> mystic as I.

>>>> 

>>>> You cannot speak of Experience without explicitly or implicitly asserting 
>>>> an Experiencer --->> d

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[thompnickson2]

Hi, Dave, 

 

How is it in that Lank Amsterdamp?  Lights coming on.  People starting to head 
home.  Bright crisp mid-morning here.  Sky azure right down to the refreshed 
white folds of the sangres.  Mind you, it has not been always so.  On Saturday, 
a drive up to the College, took you into the clouds.  

 

Ok, so you know that I am daffy about etymology.

 

ineffable (adj.)

late 14c., "beyond expression, too great for words, inexpressible," from Old 
French ineffable (14c.) or directly from Latin ineffabilis "unutterable," from 
in- "not, opposite of" (see in- 
<https://www.etymonline.com/word/in-?ref=etymonline_crossreference#etymonline_v_6284>
  (1)) + effabilis "speakable," from effari "utter," from assimilated form of 
ex "out" (see ex- 
<https://www.etymonline.com/word/ex-?ref=etymonline_crossreference> ) + fari 
"to say, speak," from PIE root *bha- 
<https://www.etymonline.com/word/*bha-?ref=etymonline_crossreference#etymonline_v_52548>
  (2) "to speak, tell, say." Meaning "that may not be spoken" is from 1590s. 
Plural noun ineffables was, for a time, a jocular euphemism for "trousers" 
(1823; see inexpressible 
<https://www.etymonline.com/word/inexpressible?ref=etymonline_crossreference> 
). Related: Ineffably.

So, you are herding me along in my thinking.  Yes, I think of you rather like a 
thought-shepherd-dog, rushing off to nip at the heals of any errant conception  
This latest nip has to do with my not quite grasping that to “eff” something is 
to “render it in words.”  

 

Let’s say that my grand daughter came to me in tears to say that her dog had 
been run over in the street.  Words fail me, so I hug her.  So, my feelings for 
her at that moment were ineffable.  Yet I managed to render them!  And, now, 
with words, I have managed to render them to you.  

 

I wonder if ineffability is a feeling, like anxiety.  Like anxiety, it may, or 
may not, have very much to do with the thing it is ostensibly “about”.  It is 
like displacement preening in bickering ducks.  Ineffing is something we do 
when we don’t know which way to eff.  

 

By the way.  My parents (as you can guess) were in publishing and editing and 
were very wordy people.  My mother died quite young (or so it seems from the 
perspective of 82).  She struggled with words all her life, tried to do too 
much with them.  It was years before my father could put an epigraph on her 
grave.  It lay there for years, just the brass plate, with her name and dates.  
Relatives commented when they visited the family plot.   Then, the year we went 
to bury my aunt, there it was, finally, etched in the brass, my father’s 
comment on our 37 years together as a family:  “Words Fail!”  

 

Nick 

 

 

Nick Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2019 12:45 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

 

Ineffable!

 

There are many things that "cannot be expressed in words."

 

There are many experiences "that cannot be expressed in words."

 

Perhaps the "words" simply do not exist - or exist at the moment — the 
vocabulary problem you mention.

 

Perhaps the constructs of the language — copulas / the verb "to be" in English, 
for example — prevent accurate assertions, or mandate unresolvable paradox.

 

Perhaps no language with appropriate expressive power is extant. (Unless Nick, 
in his researchers, has rediscovered the "language of the birds" that Huggin 
and Munnin used to converse with Odin.)

 

Perhaps a 'process of investigative scrutiny' other than the one we commonly 
use to talk about common things is required; i.e. we simply have yet to invent 
the appropriate "science."

 

Why do limitations in epistemology mandate exclusions from ontology?

 

davew

 

 

 

On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, at 7:40 PM, Eric Charles wrote:

Ineffable? 

 

F it!

 

I will try for a more thorough reply later,  but the short version is that no 
inherently ineffable things exist,  because "exist" and "real" are awkward ways 
we talk about the object of those concepts that will sustain the scrutiny of 
investigation. For that process to happen,  we have to be able to talk about 
the thing being investigated,  i.e. it must be in-principle effable. If we lack 
the necessary vocabulary at the moment,  that's a different problem. 

 

On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 12:03 PM mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> > wrote:

Dave, 

 

Thanks for this; and thanks, Frank, for forwarding it, else I should never have 
seen it.  

 

Well, that’s what I get 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Grant Holland]

Of course, Heisenberg and Bohr made this point regarding the quantum world. 
Languages are constructed, or emerge, to operate within certain bounds.

Grant

> On Dec 10, 2019, at 12:44 AM, Prof David West  wrote:
> 
> Ineffable!
> 
> There are many things that "cannot be expressed in words."
> 
> There are many experiences "that cannot be expressed in words."
> 
> Perhaps the "words" simply do not exist - or exist at the moment — the 
> vocabulary problem you mention.
> 
> Perhaps the constructs of the language — copulas / the verb "to be" in 
> English, for example — prevent accurate assertions, or mandate unresolvable 
> paradox.
> 
> Perhaps no language with appropriate expressive power is extant. (Unless 
> Nick, in his researchers, has rediscovered the "language of the birds" that 
> Huggin and Munnin used to converse with Odin.)
> 
> Perhaps a 'process of investigative scrutiny' other than the one we commonly 
> use to talk about common things is required; i.e. we simply have yet to 
> invent the appropriate "science."
> 
> Why do limitations in epistemology mandate exclusions from ontology?
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, at 7:40 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
>> Ineffable? 
>> 
>> F it!
>> 
>> I will try for a more thorough reply later,  but the short version is that 
>> no inherently ineffable things exist,  because "exist" and "real" are 
>> awkward ways we talk about the object of those concepts that will sustain 
>> the scrutiny of investigation. For that process to happen,  we have to be 
>> able to talk about the thing being investigated,  i.e. it must be 
>> in-principle effable. If we lack the necessary vocabulary at the moment,  
>> that's a different problem. 
>> 
>> On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 12:03 PM > <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> Dave, 
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Thanks for this; and thanks, Frank, for forwarding it, else I should never 
>> have seen it.  
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Well, that’s what I get for labeling my Monism.  Once labeled, monisms 
>> become dualisms.  Let me just say that the experiencer of an experience is 
>> simply another experience.  
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Isn’t admitting to the ineffable throwing in the towel? 
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Nick 
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Nick Thompson
>> 
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>> 
>> Clark University
>> 
>> thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ 
>> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>> 
>>  
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>> 
>> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
>> Sent: Monday, December 9, 2019 6:20 AM
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > <mailto:friam@redfish.com>>
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> I think we've gotten somewhere.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Frank
>> 
>> 
>> ---
>> Frank Wimberly
>> 
>> My memoir:
>> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly 
>> <https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly>
>> 
>> My scientific publications:
>> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 
>> <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2>
>> 
>> Phone (505) 670-9918
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 4:08 AM Prof David West > <mailto:profw...@fastmail.fm>> wrote:
>> 
>> Nick,
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> No need to be ill at ease — I do not mean illusory in, or with, any 
>> sense/degree/intimation of dualism.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Ultimately, either: I am more of a monist than thou. Or, you are equally a 
>> mystic as I.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> You cannot speak of Experience without explicitly or implicitly asserting an 
>> Experiencer --->> dualism. If there is an Experience "of which you cannot 
>> speak," or of which "whatever is spoken is incorrect or incomplete;" then 
>> you are as much a mystic as Lao Tzu and the Tao.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Because your sensibilities will not allow you to admit your mysticism, I 
>> offer an alternative: you are an epistemological monist but not an 
>> ontological monist. On the latter point; I have already accused you of 
>> be

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Prof David West]

Ineffable!

There are many things that "cannot be expressed in words."

There are many experiences "that cannot be expressed in words."

Perhaps the "words" simply do not exist - or exist at the moment — the 
vocabulary problem you mention.

Perhaps the constructs of the language — copulas / the verb "to be" in English, 
for example — prevent accurate assertions, or mandate unresolvable paradox.

Perhaps no language with appropriate expressive power is extant. (Unless Nick, 
in his researchers, has rediscovered the "language of the birds" that Huggin 
and Munnin used to converse with Odin.)

Perhaps a 'process of investigative scrutiny' other than the one we commonly 
use to talk about common things is required; i.e. we simply have yet to invent 
the appropriate "science."

Why do limitations in epistemology mandate exclusions from ontology?

davew



On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, at 7:40 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ineffable? 
> 
> F it!
> 
> I will try for a more thorough reply later, but the short version is that no 
> inherently ineffable things exist, because "exist" and "real" are awkward 
> ways we talk about the object of those concepts that will sustain the 
> scrutiny of investigation. For that process to happen, we have to be able to 
> talk about the thing being investigated, i.e. it must be in-principle 
> effable. If we lack the necessary vocabulary at the moment, that's a 
> different problem. 
> 
> On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 12:03 PM  wrote:
>> Dave, 

>> __ __

>> Thanks for this; and thanks, Frank, for forwarding it, else I should never 
>> have seen it. 

>> __ __

>> Well, that’s what I get for labeling my Monism. Once labeled, monisms become 
>> dualisms. Let me just say that the experiencer of an experience is simply 
>> another experience. 

>> __ __

>> Isn’t admitting to the ineffable throwing in the towel? 

>> __ __

>> Nick 

>> __ __

>> Nick Thompson

>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

>> Clark University

>> ThompNickSon2@gmail.com

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

>> ____

>> __ __

>> __ __


>> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
>> *Sent:* Monday, December 9, 2019 6:20 AM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

>> __ __

>> I think we've gotten somewhere.

>> __ __

>> Frank


>> ---
>> Frank Wimberly
>> 
>> My memoir:
>> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly
>> 
>> My scientific publications:
>> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
>> 
>> Phone (505) 670-9918

>> __ __

>> On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 4:08 AM Prof David West  
>> wrote:

>>> Nick,

>>> __ __

>>> No need to be ill at ease — I do not mean illusory in, or with, any 
>>> sense/degree/intimation of dualism.

>>> __ __

>>> Ultimately, either: I am more of a monist than thou. Or, you are equally a 
>>> mystic as I.

>>> __ __

>>> You cannot speak of Experience without explicitly or implicitly asserting 
>>> an Experiencer --->> dualism. If there is an Experience "of which you 
>>> cannot speak," or of which "whatever is spoken is incorrect or incomplete;" 
>>> then you are as much a mystic as Lao Tzu and the Tao.

>>> __ __

>>> Because your sensibilities will not allow you to admit your mysticism, I 
>>> offer an alternative: you are an epistemological monist but not an 
>>> ontological monist. On the latter point; I have already accused you of 
>>> believing in an ontological "Thing" other than experience: a human soul or 
>>> essence or spirit.

>>> __ __

>>> My monism is both ontological (except for the myth that infinitely long 
>>> ago, and infinitely in the future, there were two things "intelligence" and 
>>> "matter") and epistemological (accepting that my epistemology is 
>>> ineffable).

>>> __ __

>>> __ __

>>> davew

>>> __ __

>>> __ __

>>> __ __

>>> On Fri, Dec 6, 2019, at 8:49 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:

>>>> Hi, David,

>>>> 

>>>> Thanks for channeling me so accurately. It is a talent to channel what one 
>>>> does not agree with so faithfully that the person channeled is satisfied. 
>

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Eric Charles]

Ineffable?

F it!

I will try for a more thorough reply later,  but the short version is that
no inherently ineffable things exist,  because "exist" and "real" are
awkward ways we talk about the object of those concepts that will sustain
the scrutiny of investigation. For that process to happen,  we have to be
able to talk about the thing being investigated,  i.e. it must be
in-principle effable. If we lack the necessary vocabulary at the moment,
that's a different problem.

On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 12:03 PM  wrote:

> Dave,
>
>
>
> Thanks for this; and thanks, Frank, for forwarding it, else I should never
> have seen it.
>
>
>
> Well, that’s what I get for labeling my Monism.  Once labeled, monisms
> become dualisms.  Let me just say that the experiencer of an experience is
> simply another experience.
>
>
>
> Isn’t admitting to the ineffable throwing in the towel?
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Frank Wimberly
> *Sent:* Monday, December 9, 2019 6:20 AM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?
>
>
>
> I think we've gotten somewhere.
>
>
>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank Wimberly
>
> My memoir:
> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly
>
> My scientific publications:
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
>
> Phone (505) 670-9918
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 4:08 AM Prof David West  wrote:
>
> Nick,
>
>
>
> No need to be ill at ease — I do not mean illusory in, or with, any
> sense/degree/intimation of dualism.
>
>
>
> Ultimately, either: I am more of a monist than thou. Or, you are equally a
> mystic as I.
>
>
>
> You cannot speak of Experience without explicitly or implicitly asserting
> an Experiencer --->> dualism. If there is an Experience "of which you
> cannot speak," or of which "whatever is spoken is incorrect or incomplete;"
> then you are as much a mystic as Lao Tzu and the Tao.
>
>
>
> Because your sensibilities will not allow you to admit your mysticism, I
> offer an alternative: you are an epistemological monist but not an
> ontological monist. On the latter point; I have already accused you of
> believing in an ontological "Thing" other than experience: a human soul or
> essence or spirit.
>
>
>
> My monism is both ontological (except for the myth that infinitely long
> ago, and infinitely in the future, there were two things "intelligence" and
> "matter") and epistemological (accepting that my epistemology is ineffable).
>
>
>
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 6, 2019, at 8:49 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Hi, David,
>
>
>
> Thanks for channeling me so accurately.  It is a talent to channel what
> one does not agree with so faithfully that the person channeled is
> satisfied.   Thank you for that.
>
>
>
> I would have only one ill-ease, about the last part of your version:
>
>
>
> *both equally illusory.*
>
>
>
> I think “illusory” is used here, in your way, not in the way I would use
> it, but to refer to the world that truly is but which we an never truly
> grasp.  I.e., dualistically.  For me, an illusion is just an experience
> that does not prove out.  I arrive at my coffee house three days in a row
> and there is a “day old” old-fashioned plain donut available for purchase
> at half price.  I experience that “donut at 4” is something I can count
> on.  That turns out not to be the case because, another customer starts
> coming in at 3.59 and commandeering all the donuts.  My experience was
> illusory.  Or, think flips of a coin.  You flip a coin 7 times heads and
> you come to the conclusion that the coin is biased.  However, you flip it a
> thousand times more and its behavior over the 1007 flips is consistent with
> randomness.  You come to the conclusion that the bias was probably an
> illusion.
>
>
>
> My understanding of illusory is probabilistic and provisional.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> *thompnicks...@gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Pro

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[thompnickson2]

Dave, 

 

Thanks for this; and thanks, Frank, for forwarding it, else I should never have 
seen it.  

 

Well, that’s what I get for labeling my Monism.  Once labeled, monisms become 
dualisms.  Let me just say that the experiencer of an experience is simply 
another experience.  

 

Isn’t admitting to the ineffable throwing in the towel? 

 

Nick 

 

Nick Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Monday, December 9, 2019 6:20 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

 

I think we've gotten somewhere.

 

Frank

---
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

 

On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 4:08 AM Prof David West mailto:profw...@fastmail.fm> > wrote:

Nick,

 

No need to be ill at ease — I do not mean illusory in, or with, any 
sense/degree/intimation of dualism.

 

Ultimately, either: I am more of a monist than thou. Or, you are equally a 
mystic as I.

 

You cannot speak of Experience without explicitly or implicitly asserting an 
Experiencer --->> dualism. If there is an Experience "of which you cannot 
speak," or of which "whatever is spoken is incorrect or incomplete;" then you 
are as much a mystic as Lao Tzu and the Tao.

 

Because your sensibilities will not allow you to admit your mysticism, I offer 
an alternative: you are an epistemological monist but not an ontological 
monist. On the latter point; I have already accused you of believing in an 
ontological "Thing" other than experience: a human soul or essence or spirit.

 

My monism is both ontological (except for the myth that infinitely long ago, 
and infinitely in the future, there were two things "intelligence" and 
"matter") and epistemological (accepting that my epistemology is ineffable).

 

 

davew

 

 

 

On Fri, Dec 6, 2019, at 8:49 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com 
<mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>  wrote:

Hi, David,

 

Thanks for channeling me so accurately.  It is a talent to channel what one 
does not agree with so faithfully that the person channeled is satisfied.   
Thank you for that. 

 

I would have only one ill-ease, about the last part of your version:

 

both equally illusory.

 

I think “illusory” is used here, in your way, not in the way I would use it, 
but to refer to the world that truly is but which we an never truly grasp.  
I.e., dualistically.  For me, an illusion is just an experience that does not 
prove out.  I arrive at my coffee house three days in a row and there is a “day 
old” old-fashioned plain donut available for purchase at half price.  I 
experience that “donut at 4” is something I can count on.  That turns out not 
to be the case because, another customer starts coming in at 3.59 and 
commandeering all the donuts.  My experience was illusory.  Or, think flips of 
a coin.  You flip a coin 7 times heads and you come to the conclusion that the 
coin is biased.  However, you flip it a thousand times more and its behavior 
over the 1007 flips is consistent with randomness.  You come to the conclusion 
that the bias was probably an illusion. 

 

My understanding of illusory is probabilistic and provisional. 

 

Nick

 

 

Nick Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

thompnicks...@gmail.com <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

 

From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > On 
Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Friday, December 6, 2019 10:16 AM

To: friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com> 

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

 

I dare not really speak for Nick, but I think the essence of his position is 
that there is no "out there" nor is there any "in here." There is only a flow 
of "experience" that is sometimes "evaluated" (interpreted?) to a false 
distinction of in or out — both equally illusory.

 

davew

 

 

On Fri, Dec 6, 2019, at 3:27 PM, John Kennison wrote:

Hi Nick, and Eric,

 

I am grappling with Nick's ideas that mental states must be physical things and 
even are "out there" rather than "in here". What about delusions? If I think I 
see bear in the woods but I am mistaken, is this false perception "out there" 
even when the bear is not?

 

--John

 


  _  


 

 

From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > on 
behalf of Eric Charles mailto:eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com> >
Sent: Thursday, December 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Curt McNamara]

This discussion reminded me of two books:

The Mechanical Mind by Crane
https://books.google.com/books?id=fIzWix4CPxkC=frontcover#v=onepage=false
In it the author makes clear that all thinking is tied to (some kind) of
experience. Which is different from AI (at this time).

The Order of Time by Rovelli
https://books.google.com/books?id=YvM3DwAAQBAJ=frontcover#v=onepage=false
Rovelli makes it clear there is no single time -- it is different for you
and me, different on the mountain top, and there is "less of it" near large
masses. Time is discrete, and has a lower allowable limit.

Curt

On Mon, Dec 9, 2019 at 7:20 AM Frank Wimberly  wrote:

> I think we've gotten somewhere.
>
> Frank
>
> ---
> Frank Wimberly
>
> My memoir:
> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly
>
> My scientific publications:
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
>
> Phone (505) 670-9918
>
> On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 4:08 AM Prof David West  wrote:
>
>> Nick,
>>
>> No need to be ill at ease — I do not mean illusory in, or with, any
>> sense/degree/intimation of dualism.
>>
>> Ultimately, either: I am more of a monist than thou. Or, you are equally
>> a mystic as I.
>>
>> You cannot speak of Experience without explicitly or implicitly asserting
>> an Experiencer --->> dualism. If there is an Experience "of which you
>> cannot speak," or of which "whatever is spoken is incorrect or incomplete;"
>> then you are as much a mystic as Lao Tzu and the Tao.
>>
>> Because your sensibilities will not allow you to admit your mysticism, I
>> offer an alternative: you are an epistemological monist but not an
>> ontological monist. On the latter point; I have already accused you of
>> believing in an ontological "Thing" other than experience: a human soul or
>> essence or spirit.
>>
>> My monism is both ontological (except for the myth that infinitely long
>> ago, and infinitely in the future, there were two things "intelligence" and
>> "matter") and epistemological (accepting that my epistemology is ineffable).
>>
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 6, 2019, at 8:49 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> Hi, David,
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for channeling me so accurately.  It is a talent to channel what
>> one does not agree with so faithfully that the person channeled is
>> satisfied.   Thank you for that.
>>
>>
>>
>> I would have only one ill-ease, about the last part of your version:
>>
>>
>>
>> *both equally illusory.*
>>
>>
>>
>> I think “illusory” is used here, in your way, not in the way I would use
>> it, but to refer to the world that truly is but which we an never truly
>> grasp.  I.e., dualistically.  For me, an illusion is just an experience
>> that does not prove out.  I arrive at my coffee house three days in a row
>> and there is a “day old” old-fashioned plain donut available for purchase
>> at half price.  I experience that “donut at 4” is something I can count
>> on.  That turns out not to be the case because, another customer starts
>> coming in at 3.59 and commandeering all the donuts.  My experience was
>> illusory.  Or, think flips of a coin.  You flip a coin 7 times heads and
>> you come to the conclusion that the coin is biased.  However, you flip it a
>> thousand times more and its behavior over the 1007 flips is consistent with
>> randomness.  You come to the conclusion that the bias was probably an
>> illusion.
>>
>>
>>
>> My understanding of illusory is probabilistic and provisional.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> *thompnicks...@gmail.com
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>*
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>> *Sent:* Friday, December 6, 2019 10:16 AM
>> *To:* friam@redfish.com
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?
>>
>>
>>
>> I dare not really speak for Nick, but I think the essence of his position
>> is that there is no "out there" nor is there any "in here." There is only a
>> flow of "experience" that is sometimes "evaluated" (interpreted?) to a
>> false distinction of in or out — bo

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Frank Wimberly]

I think we've gotten somewhere.

Frank

---
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Mon, Dec 9, 2019, 4:08 AM Prof David West  wrote:

> Nick,
>
> No need to be ill at ease — I do not mean illusory in, or with, any
> sense/degree/intimation of dualism.
>
> Ultimately, either: I am more of a monist than thou. Or, you are equally a
> mystic as I.
>
> You cannot speak of Experience without explicitly or implicitly asserting
> an Experiencer --->> dualism. If there is an Experience "of which you
> cannot speak," or of which "whatever is spoken is incorrect or incomplete;"
> then you are as much a mystic as Lao Tzu and the Tao.
>
> Because your sensibilities will not allow you to admit your mysticism, I
> offer an alternative: you are an epistemological monist but not an
> ontological monist. On the latter point; I have already accused you of
> believing in an ontological "Thing" other than experience: a human soul or
> essence or spirit.
>
> My monism is both ontological (except for the myth that infinitely long
> ago, and infinitely in the future, there were two things "intelligence" and
> "matter") and epistemological (accepting that my epistemology is ineffable).
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 6, 2019, at 8:49 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Hi, David,
>
>
>
> Thanks for channeling me so accurately.  It is a talent to channel what
> one does not agree with so faithfully that the person channeled is
> satisfied.   Thank you for that.
>
>
>
> I would have only one ill-ease, about the last part of your version:
>
>
>
> *both equally illusory.*
>
>
>
> I think “illusory” is used here, in your way, not in the way I would use
> it, but to refer to the world that truly is but which we an never truly
> grasp.  I.e., dualistically.  For me, an illusion is just an experience
> that does not prove out.  I arrive at my coffee house three days in a row
> and there is a “day old” old-fashioned plain donut available for purchase
> at half price.  I experience that “donut at 4” is something I can count
> on.  That turns out not to be the case because, another customer starts
> coming in at 3.59 and commandeering all the donuts.  My experience was
> illusory.  Or, think flips of a coin.  You flip a coin 7 times heads and
> you come to the conclusion that the coin is biased.  However, you flip it a
> thousand times more and its behavior over the 1007 flips is consistent with
> randomness.  You come to the conclusion that the bias was probably an
> illusion.
>
>
>
> My understanding of illusory is probabilistic and provisional.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> *thompnicks...@gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>*
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
> *Sent:* Friday, December 6, 2019 10:16 AM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?
>
>
>
> I dare not really speak for Nick, but I think the essence of his position
> is that there is no "out there" nor is there any "in here." There is only a
> flow of "experience" that is sometimes "evaluated" (interpreted?) to a
> false distinction of in or out — both equally illusory.
>
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 6, 2019, at 3:27 PM, John Kennison wrote:
>
> Hi Nick, and Eric,
>
>
>
> I am grappling with Nick's ideas that mental states must be physical
> things and even are "out there" rather than "in here". What about
> delusions? If I think I see bear in the woods but I am mistaken, is this
> false perception "out there" even when the bear is not?
>
>
>
> --John
>
>
> --
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam  on behalf of Eric Charles <
> eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 5, 2019 8:41 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* [EXT] Re: [FRIAM] A pluralistic model of the mind?
>
>
>
> Nick,
>
> Your need to complicate things is fascinating. You are a monist. You are a
> monist is the sense of not thinking that "mental" things and "physical"
> things are made of different stuffs. At that point, you can throw a new
>

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Prof David West]

Nick,

No need to be ill at ease — I do not mean illusory in, or with, any 
sense/degree/intimation of dualism.

Ultimately, either: I am more of a monist than thou. Or, you are equally a 
mystic as I.

You cannot speak of Experience without explicitly or implicitly asserting an 
Experiencer --->> dualism. If there is an Experience "of which you cannot 
speak," or of which "whatever is spoken is incorrect or incomplete;" then you 
are as much a mystic as Lao Tzu and the Tao.

Because your sensibilities will not allow you to admit your mysticism, I offer 
an alternative: you are an epistemological monist but not an ontological 
monist. On the latter point; I have already accused you of believing in an 
ontological "Thing" other than experience: a human soul or essence or spirit.

My monism is both ontological (except for the myth that infinitely long ago, 
and infinitely in the future, there were two things "intelligence" and 
"matter") and epistemological (accepting that my epistemology is ineffable).


davew



On Fri, Dec 6, 2019, at 8:49 PM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi, David,

> 

> Thanks for channeling me so accurately. It is a talent to channel what one 
> does not agree with so faithfully that the person channeled is satisfied. 
> Thank you for that. 

> 

> I would have only one ill-ease, about the last part of your version:

> 

> **both equally illusory.**

> 

> I think “illusory” is used here, in your way, not in the way I would use it, 
> but to refer to the world that truly is but which we an never truly grasp. 
> I.e., dualistically. For me, an illusion is just an experience that does not 
> prove out. I arrive at my coffee house three days in a row and there is a 
> “day old” old-fashioned plain donut available for purchase at half price. I 
> experience that “donut at 4” is something I can count on. That turns out not 
> to be the case because, another customer starts coming in at 3.59 and 
> commandeering all the donuts. My experience was illusory. Or, think flips of 
> a coin. You flip a coin 7 times heads and you come to the conclusion that the 
> coin is biased. However, you flip it a thousand times more and its behavior 
> over the 1007 flips is consistent with randomness. You come to the conclusion 
> that the bias was probably an illusion. 

> 

> My understanding of illusory is probabilistic and provisional. 

> 

> Nick

> 

> 

> Nick Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

> _ThompNickSon2@gmail.comhttps://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/_

> 

> 

> 


> *From:* Friam  *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
> *Sent:* Friday, December 6, 2019 10:16 AM
> *To:* friam@redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

> 

> I dare not really speak for Nick, but I think the essence of his position is 
> that there is no "out there" nor is there any "in here." There is only a flow 
> of "experience" that is sometimes "evaluated" (interpreted?) to a false 
> distinction of in or out — both equally illusory.

> 

> davew

> 

> 

> On Fri, Dec 6, 2019, at 3:27 PM, John Kennison wrote:

>> Hi Nick, and Eric,

>> 

>> I am grappling with Nick's ideas that mental states must be physical things 
>> and even are "out there" rather than "in here". What about delusions? If I 
>> think I see bear in the woods but I am mistaken, is this false perception 
>> "out there" even when the bear is not?

>> 

>> --John

>> 

>> 
>> 

>> *From:* Friam  on behalf of Eric Charles 
>> 
>> *Sent:* Thursday, December 5, 2019 8:41 PM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>> *Subject:* [EXT] Re: [FRIAM] A pluralistic model of the mind?

>> 

>> Nick, 

>> Your need to complicate things is fascinating. You are a monist. You are a 
>> monist is the sense of not thinking that "mental" things and "physical" 
>> things are made of different stuffs. At that point, you can throw a new word 
>> in the mix (e.g., 'experience', 'neutral stuff'), or you can throw your hat 
>> in with one or the other side of the original division, e.g., "I am a 
>> materialist" or "I am an idealist". To that, you add the insight that that 
>> later discussion is all a bit weird, because once you have decided to be a 
>> monist it weirdly doesn't matter much what you call the stuff.That insight 
>> is in need of support, because the old dichotomy is so built in to our 
>> language and culture that the claim it doesn't matter which side you choose 
>> is ve

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[HighlandWindsLLC Miller]

Sent from my iPhone

> On Dec 7, 2019, at 1:25 PM,  
>  wrote:
> 
> Glen, 
> 
> Most streams of experience don't converge.  Random streams predict nothing.  
> They are of no use to the organism.  Only streams that converge, "are".  I.e, 
> only they exist.  Random streams, aren't.  Most co-occurrences in stream are 
> random, they reveal no existents.  Since you can never know for sure whether 
> you are in a random or a non random stream, you can never know whether the 
> parts of the stream you are responding to exist or not.  But you can sure 
> make educated (i.e., probabilistic)  guesses, and that's what organisms' 
> learning mechanisms do.  So, I don’t have a ==>faith<== in convergence.  I, 
> like all learning creatures, have a lack of interest in non-convergence.  Non 
> being interested in convergence in experience would be like going to a poker 
> game in which some cards are marked and not being interested in the relation 
> between the cards and the marks.  
> 
> Nick 
> 
> Nick Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> 
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of glen?C
> Sent: Saturday, December 7, 2019 9:40 AM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?
> 
> Excellent! So, your *scalar* is confidence in your estimates of any given 
> distribution. I try to describe it in [†] below. But that's a tangent.
> 
> What I can't yet reconstruct, credibly, in my own words, is the faith in 
> *convergence*. What if sequential calculations of an average do NOT converge?
> 
> Does this mean there are 2 stuffs, some that converge and some that don't? 
> ... some distributions are stationary and some are not? Or would you assert 
> that reality (and/or truth, given Peirce's distinction) is always and 
> everywhere stationary and all (competent/accurate/precise) estimates will 
> always converge?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [†] You can be a little confident (0.01%) or a lot confident (99.9%). I don't 
> much care if you close the set and allow 0 and 1, confidence ∈ [0,1]. I think 
> I have ways to close the set. But it doesn't matter. If we keep it open and 
> agree that 100% confidence is illusory, then your scalar is confidence ∈ 
> (0,1). Now that we have a scale of some kind, we can *construct* a typology 
> of experiences. E.g. we can categorize things like deja vu or a bear in the 
> woods as accumulations of confidence with different organizations. E.g. a 
> composite experience with ((e1⨂e2⨂e3)⨂e4)⨂e5, where each of ei experiences 
> has some confidence associated with it. Obviously, ⨂ is not multiplication or 
> addition, but some other composer function. The whole composite experience 
> would then have some aggregate confidence.
> 
>> On December 6, 2019 8:22:29 PM PST, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Elegant, Glen, and you caused me truly to wonder:  Is the population 
>> mean, mu,  of statistics fame, of a different substance than the 
>> individual measurements, the bar x's that are stabs at it?  But I think 
>> the answer is no.  It is just one among the others, a citizen king 
>> amongst those bar-x's, the one on which the others will converge in a 
>> normally distributed world.  I guess that makes me a frequentist, 
>> right?
>> 
>> And it's not strictly true that Mu is beyond my reach.  I may have 
>> already reached it with the sample I now hold in my hand.  I just will 
>> never be sure that I have reached it.
>> 
>> Could you, Dave, and I perhaps all agree that all ==>certainty<== is 
>> illusory?
>> 
>> I don't think that's going to assuage you.  
>> 
>> I am going to have to think more. 
>> 
>> Ugh!  I hate when that happens. 
> 
> 
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe 
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> 
> 
> 


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[John Kennison]

Eric,

Many thanks for your three versions of my question. I haven't decided whether 
any of them represent what my original question was but I appreciate all three. 
I guess I want to say that my original experience of "seeing" a bear in the 
woods is the same regardless of whether later experiences, by me or others, 
lead to the judgement that there was, or was not, an actual bear in the woods. 
Later judgements might affect how I regard my experience (or perhaps I should 
say influence  subsequent experience relating to my original experience.)

--John

From: Eric Charles 
Sent: Saturday, December 7, 2019 9:00 AM
To: John Kennison 
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [EXT] Re: [FRIAM] A pluralistic model of the mind?

John,
This is a wonderful question, and though it has already gone one way in the 
thread, I want to point out that there is another way it can go. "Are you 
really asserting," you ask, a bit rephrased, "that the bear I think is in the 
woods is somehow out there even when there is no bear?"

 We COULD understand your question as a philosophical/ontological/metaphysical 
one.  Along these lines, Glen channels Nick fairly well, and points out that 
the judgement of the in-woods-bear is illusory is a post-hoc judgement, which 
one can only arrive based on later experience. The judgement of "real" vs. 
"illusion" is after the fact, and the fact is that the initial experience is 
"bear in woods" without any such baggage. Nick brings in that this is a bit of 
a statistical issue, with expectations being based on past experience, and he 
points out that the "problem of induction" reminds us that the next time could 
always be different. Glen rightly chimes in with the observation that it is 
nigh impossible for us to see anything "fully prove out". That point is 
wonderful, because it brings us to Peirce's definition of "Truth". Recall that 
Peirce is the first combination History/Philosophy/Anthropology of Science guy. 
Sure, there is a lot written about science before Peirce, but Peirce has read 
the actual records of the scientists, and is a highly reputed scientist, and is 
interested in what Scientists are actually doing, not what they say they are 
doing, or what it might make abstract sense for them to be doing. Thus, when on 
good behavior, Peirce is explicitly articulating The Scientist's working 
definition of Truth: Truth is that upon which we would ultimately agree, when 
the dust of all the investigations settle. Truth is exactly that which will be 
fully proved out, should it take millennia for the proving. And until the dust 
settles, all assertions of Truth are provisional. Or, to phrase it differently, 
when a scientists asserts the truth of a conclusion within their field, they 
are exactly asserting that the conclusion will fully prove out in future 
investigation, and nothing more. If the conclusion doesn't prove out, then they 
were wrong. Any scientists trying to assert they are doing something else, 
something philosophically/ontologically/metaphysically deeper than that is, on 
Peirce's account, misrepresenting their actual activity and/or they have 
squarely stepped outside the role of Scientist.

We COULD understand your question as something bordering philosophy and 
psychology (at least as they were understood in the early 1900s). Returning to 
the start... That bear in the woods is initially experienced as out-there, and 
remains experienced as out-there, unless some later experience leads you to the 
conclusion that it is not out-there. Given John's initial question, we can 
surmise that the further investigation will lead you to not only conclude that 
there is no bear out there, but that there never was (the latter being a second 
conclusion, presumably distinct from the first). But when - via further 
investigation - we determine the bear was never-in-the-woods, what do we 
conclude? Is it possible to conclude "I was wrong that the bear was out there" 
without jumping immediately to "the bear was in-here the whole time"? Nick 
asserts that we can conclude our initial belief inaccurate without jumping 
immediately to the existence of "mental bears" in the mind/soul-theater/brain. 
He asserts that is possible, both because "in-here" creates a host of 
philosophical problems, and because we must not let the 20-steps-down-the-road 
conclusion color our view of the initial experience. The initial experience is 
unalterably of "a bear in the woods". That experience happened, past-tense, and 
it some sort of screwy post-hoc shenanigans to try use that conclusion to 
reinterpret the initial experience into something it wasn't. At this point, 
while we are clearly drawing upon what we laid out as Peircian in the first 
paragraph, we are actually in the middle of a Wi

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Eric Charles]

  They are of no use to the organism.  Only streams that converge,
> "are".  I.e, only they exist.  Random streams, aren't.  Most co-occurrences
> in stream are random, they reveal no existents.  Since you can never know
> for sure whether you are in a random or a non random stream, you can never
> know whether the parts of the stream you are responding to exist or not.
> But you can sure make educated (i.e., probabilistic)  guesses, and that's
> what organisms' learning mechanisms do.  So, I don’t have a ==>faith<== in
> convergence.  I, like all learning creatures, have a lack of interest in
> non-convergence.  Non being interested in convergence in experience would
> be like going to a poker game in which some cards are marked and not being
> interested in the relation between the cards and the marks.
>
> Nick
>
> Nick Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> thompnicks...@gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Friam  On Behalf Of glen?C
> Sent: Saturday, December 7, 2019 9:40 AM
> To: friam@redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?
>
> Excellent! So, your *scalar* is confidence in your estimates of any given
> distribution. I try to describe it in [†] below. But that's a tangent.
>
> What I can't yet reconstruct, credibly, in my own words, is the faith in
> *convergence*. What if sequential calculations of an average do NOT
> converge?
>
> Does this mean there are 2 stuffs, some that converge and some that don't?
> ... some distributions are stationary and some are not? Or would you assert
> that reality (and/or truth, given Peirce's distinction) is always and
> everywhere stationary and all (competent/accurate/precise) estimates will
> always converge?
>
>
>
>
> [†] You can be a little confident (0.01%) or a lot confident (99.9%). I
> don't much care if you close the set and allow 0 and 1, confidence ∈ [0,1].
> I think I have ways to close the set. But it doesn't matter. If we keep it
> open and agree that 100% confidence is illusory, then your scalar is
> confidence ∈ (0,1). Now that we have a scale of some kind, we can
> *construct* a typology of experiences. E.g. we can categorize things like
> deja vu or a bear in the woods as accumulations of confidence with
> different organizations. E.g. a composite experience with
> ((e1⨂e2⨂e3)⨂e4)⨂e5, where each of ei experiences has some confidence
> associated with it. Obviously, ⨂ is not multiplication or addition, but
> some other composer function. The whole composite experience would then
> have some aggregate confidence.
>
> On December 6, 2019 8:22:29 PM PST, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> >Elegant, Glen, and you caused me truly to wonder:  Is the population
> >mean, mu,  of statistics fame, of a different substance than the
> >individual measurements, the bar x's that are stabs at it?  But I think
> >the answer is no.  It is just one among the others, a citizen king
> >amongst those bar-x's, the one on which the others will converge in a
> >normally distributed world.  I guess that makes me a frequentist,
> >right?
> >
> >And it's not strictly true that Mu is beyond my reach.  I may have
> >already reached it with the sample I now hold in my hand.  I just will
> >never be sure that I have reached it.
> >
> >Could you, Dave, and I perhaps all agree that all ==>certainty<== is
> >illusory?
> >
> >I don't think that's going to assuage you.
> >
> >I am going to have to think more.
> >
> >Ugh!  I hate when that happens.
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC>
> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
>
> 
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[thompnickson2]

Glen, 

Most streams of experience don't converge.  Random streams predict nothing.  
They are of no use to the organism.  Only streams that converge, "are".  I.e, 
only they exist.  Random streams, aren't.  Most co-occurrences in stream are 
random, they reveal no existents.  Since you can never know for sure whether 
you are in a random or a non random stream, you can never know whether the 
parts of the stream you are responding to exist or not.  But you can sure make 
educated (i.e., probabilistic)  guesses, and that's what organisms' learning 
mechanisms do.  So, I don’t have a ==>faith<== in convergence.  I, like all 
learning creatures, have a lack of interest in non-convergence.  Non being 
interested in convergence in experience would be like going to a poker game in 
which some cards are marked and not being interested in the relation between 
the cards and the marks.  

Nick 

Nick Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
thompnicks...@gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
 


-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of glen?C
Sent: Saturday, December 7, 2019 9:40 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

Excellent! So, your *scalar* is confidence in your estimates of any given 
distribution. I try to describe it in [†] below. But that's a tangent.

What I can't yet reconstruct, credibly, in my own words, is the faith in 
*convergence*. What if sequential calculations of an average do NOT converge?

Does this mean there are 2 stuffs, some that converge and some that don't? ... 
some distributions are stationary and some are not? Or would you assert that 
reality (and/or truth, given Peirce's distinction) is always and everywhere 
stationary and all (competent/accurate/precise) estimates will always converge?




[†] You can be a little confident (0.01%) or a lot confident (99.9%). I don't 
much care if you close the set and allow 0 and 1, confidence ∈ [0,1]. I think I 
have ways to close the set. But it doesn't matter. If we keep it open and agree 
that 100% confidence is illusory, then your scalar is confidence ∈ (0,1). Now 
that we have a scale of some kind, we can *construct* a typology of 
experiences. E.g. we can categorize things like deja vu or a bear in the woods 
as accumulations of confidence with different organizations. E.g. a composite 
experience with ((e1⨂e2⨂e3)⨂e4)⨂e5, where each of ei experiences has some 
confidence associated with it. Obviously, ⨂ is not multiplication or addition, 
but some other composer function. The whole composite experience would then 
have some aggregate confidence.

On December 6, 2019 8:22:29 PM PST, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
>Elegant, Glen, and you caused me truly to wonder:  Is the population 
>mean, mu,  of statistics fame, of a different substance than the 
>individual measurements, the bar x's that are stabs at it?  But I think 
>the answer is no.  It is just one among the others, a citizen king 
>amongst those bar-x's, the one on which the others will converge in a 
>normally distributed world.  I guess that makes me a frequentist, 
>right?
>
>And it's not strictly true that Mu is beyond my reach.  I may have 
>already reached it with the sample I now hold in my hand.  I just will 
>never be sure that I have reached it.
>
>Could you, Dave, and I perhaps all agree that all ==>certainty<== is 
>illusory?
>
>I don't think that's going to assuage you.  
>
>I am going to have to think more. 
>
>Ugh!  I hate when that happens. 



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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe 
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Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[thompnickson2]

est, 

 

Nick Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, December 7, 2019 7:00 AM
To: John Kennison 
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

 

John,

This is a wonderful question, and though it has already gone one way in the 
thread, I want to point out that there is another way it can go. "Are you 
really asserting," you ask, a bit rephrased, "that the bear I think is in the 
woods is somehow out there even when there is no bear?"

 

 We COULD understand your question as a philosophical/ontological/metaphysical 
one.  Along these lines, Glen channels Nick fairly well, and points out that 
the judgement of the in-woods-bear is illusory is a post-hoc judgement, which 
one can only arrive based on later experience. The judgement of "real" vs. 
"illusion" is after the fact, and the fact is that the initial experience is 
"bear in woods" without any such baggage. Nick brings in that this is a bit of 
a statistical issue, with expectations being based on past experience, and he 
points out that the "problem of induction" reminds us that the next time could 
always be different. Glen rightly chimes in with the observation that it is 
nigh impossible for us to see anything "fully prove out". That point is 
wonderful, because it brings us to Peirce's definition of "Truth". Recall that 
Peirce is the first combination History/Philosophy/Anthropology of Science guy. 
Sure, there is a lot written about science before Peirce, but Peirce has read 
the actual records of the scientists, and is a highly reputed scientist, and is 
interested in what Scientists are actually doing, not what they say they are 
doing, or what it might make abstract sense for them to be doing. Thus, when on 
good behavior, Peirce is explicitly articulating The Scientist's working 
definition of Truth: Truth is that upon which we would ultimately agree, when 
the dust of all the investigations settle. Truth is exactly that which will be 
fully proved out, should it take millennia for the proving. And until the dust 
settles, all assertions of Truth are provisional. Or, to phrase it differently, 
when a scientists asserts the truth of a conclusion within their field, they 
are exactly asserting that the conclusion will fully prove out in future 
investigation, and nothing more. If the conclusion doesn't prove out, then they 
were wrong. Any scientists trying to assert they are doing something else, 
something philosophically/ontologically/metaphysically deeper than that is, on 
Peirce's account, misrepresenting their actual activity and/or they have 
squarely stepped outside the role of Scientist. 

 

We COULD understand your question as something bordering philosophy and 
psychology (at least as they were understood in the early 1900s). Returning to 
the start... That bear in the woods is initially experienced as out-there, and 
remains experienced as out-there, unless some later experience leads you to the 
conclusion that it is not out-there. Given John's initial question, we can 
surmise that the further investigation will lead you to not only conclude that 
there is no bear out there, but that there never was (the latter being a second 
conclusion, presumably distinct from the first). But when - via further 
investigation - we determine the bear was never-in-the-woods, what do we 
conclude? Is it possible to conclude "I was wrong that the bear was out there" 
without jumping immediately to "the bear was in-here the whole time"? Nick 
asserts that we can conclude our initial belief inaccurate without jumping 
immediately to the existence of "mental bears" in the mind/soul-theater/brain. 
He asserts that is possible, both because "in-here" creates a host of 
philosophical problems, and because we must not let the 20-steps-down-the-road 
conclusion color our view of the initial experience. The initial experience is 
unalterably of "a bear in the woods". That experience happened, past-tense, and 
it some sort of screwy post-hoc shenanigans to try use that conclusion to 
reinterpret the initial experience into something it wasn't. At this point, 
while we are clearly drawing upon what we laid out as Peircian in the first 
paragraph, we are actually in the middle of a William-James-esque rant about 
"The Psychologist's Fallacy" - which is when the conclusion of an analysis is 
mistaken for the starting point of the analysis. 

 

We also COULD understand your question as a more straightforward psychological 
one. Returning to the start... What is it that you are referring to, when you

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[glen∈ℂ]

Excellent! So, your *scalar* is confidence in your estimates of any given 
distribution. I try to describe it in [†] below. But that's a tangent.

What I can't yet reconstruct, credibly, in my own words, is the faith in 
*convergence*. What if sequential calculations of an average do NOT converge?

Does this mean there are 2 stuffs, some that converge and some that don't? ... 
some distributions are stationary and some are not? Or would you assert that 
reality (and/or truth, given Peirce's distinction) is always and everywhere 
stationary and all (competent/accurate/precise) estimates will always converge?




[†] You can be a little confident (0.01%) or a lot confident (99.9%). I don't 
much care if you close the set and allow 0 and 1, confidence ∈ [0,1]. I think I 
have ways to close the set. But it doesn't matter. If we keep it open and agree 
that 100% confidence is illusory, then your scalar is confidence ∈ (0,1). Now 
that we have a scale of some kind, we can *construct* a typology of 
experiences. E.g. we can categorize things like deja vu or a bear in the woods 
as accumulations of confidence with different organizations. E.g. a composite 
experience with ((e1⨂e2⨂e3)⨂e4)⨂e5, where each of ei experiences has some 
confidence associated with it. Obviously, ⨂ is not multiplication or addition, 
but some other composer function. The whole composite experience would then 
have some aggregate confidence.

On December 6, 2019 8:22:29 PM PST, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:

Elegant, Glen, and you caused me truly to wonder:  Is the population
mean, mu,  of statistics fame, of a different substance than the
individual measurements, the bar x's that are stabs at it?  But I think
the answer is no.  It is just one among the others, a citizen king
amongst those bar-x's, the one on which the others will converge in a
normally distributed world.  I guess that makes me a frequentist,
right?  


And it's not strictly true that Mu is beyond my reach.  I may have
already reached it with the sample I now hold in my hand.  I just will
never be sure that I have reached it.  


Could you, Dave, and I perhaps all agree that all ==>certainty<== is
illusory?  

I don't think that's going to assuage you.  

I am going to have to think more. 

Ugh!  I hate when that happens. 




FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[thompnickson2]

Dear FRIAMMERS, 

 

If you have any interest in the 
consciousness-monism-dualism-pluralism-materialism-idealism discussion, PLEASE 
take some time to read Eric’s three paragraphs, reposted below.  He lays it out 
about as well as it can be laid out.  I may have nothing to add!

 

Think how he has economized your inbox.  

 

Nick 

 

Nick Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com> thompnicks...@gmail.com

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

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, December 7, 2019 7:00 AM
To: John Kennison 
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

 

John,

This is a wonderful question, and though it has already gone one way in the 
thread, I want to point out that there is another way it can go. "Are you 
really asserting," you ask, a bit rephrased, "that the bear I think is in the 
woods is somehow out there even when there is no bear?"

 

 We COULD understand your question as a philosophical/ontological/metaphysical 
one.  Along these lines, Glen channels Nick fairly well, and points out that 
the judgement of the in-woods-bear is illusory is a post-hoc judgement, which 
one can only arrive based on later experience. The judgement of "real" vs. 
"illusion" is after the fact, and the fact is that the initial experience is 
"bear in woods" without any such baggage. Nick brings in that this is a bit of 
a statistical issue, with expectations being based on past experience, and he 
points out that the "problem of induction" reminds us that the next time could 
always be different. Glen rightly chimes in with the observation that it is 
nigh impossible for us to see anything "fully prove out". That point is 
wonderful, because it brings us to Peirce's definition of "Truth". Recall that 
Peirce is the first combination History/Philosophy/Anthropology of Science guy. 
Sure, there is a lot written about science before Peirce, but Peirce has read 
the actual records of the scientists, and is a highly reputed scientist, and is 
interested in what Scientists are actually doing, not what they say they are 
doing, or what it might make abstract sense for them to be doing. Thus, when on 
good behavior, Peirce is explicitly articulating The Scientist's working 
definition of Truth: Truth is that upon which we would ultimately agree, when 
the dust of all the investigations settle. Truth is exactly that which will be 
fully proved out, should it take millennia for the proving. And until the dust 
settles, all assertions of Truth are provisional. Or, to phrase it differently, 
when a scientists asserts the truth of a conclusion within their field, they 
are exactly asserting that the conclusion will fully prove out in future 
investigation, and nothing more. If the conclusion doesn't prove out, then they 
were wrong. Any scientists trying to assert they are doing something else, 
something philosophically/ontologically/metaphysically deeper than that is, on 
Peirce's account, misrepresenting their actual activity and/or they have 
squarely stepped outside the role of Scientist. 

 

We COULD understand your question as something bordering philosophy and 
psychology (at least as they were understood in the early 1900s). Returning to 
the start... That bear in the woods is initially experienced as out-there, and 
remains experienced as out-there, unless some later experience leads you to the 
conclusion that it is not out-there. Given John's initial question, we can 
surmise that the further investigation will lead you to not only conclude that 
there is no bear out there, but that there never was (the latter being a second 
conclusion, presumably distinct from the first). But when - via further 
investigation - we determine the bear was never-in-the-woods, what do we 
conclude? Is it possible to conclude "I was wrong that the bear was out there" 
without jumping immediately to "the bear was in-here the whole time"? Nick 
asserts that we can conclude our initial belief inaccurate without jumping 
immediately to the existence of "mental bears" in the mind/soul-theater/brain. 
He asserts that is possible, both because "in-here" creates a host of 
philosophical problems, and because we must not let the 20-steps-down-the-road 
conclusion color our view of the initial experience. The initial experience is 
unalterably of "a bear in the woods". That experience happened, past-tense, and 
it some sort of screwy post-hoc shenanigans to try use that conclusion to 
reinterpret the initial experience into something it wasn't. At this point, 
while we are clearly drawing upon what we laid out as Peircian in the first 
paragraph, we are actually in the middle

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Eric Charles]

ehavior was not, in any way, directed at
an in-the-head bear. The bear of your thoughts, whether those thoughts
prove accurate or inaccurate, was  100% out-there-in-the-woods. That you
"thought there was a bear in the woods" is nothing more than a description,
confirmed to both yourself and to any observant third party, that your
behavior *was* a function of an out-there bear. We might have all sorts of
questions about how one's behavior comes to be directed at an entity that
is later concluded to not exist, but that is a totally different issue.
There are a myriad of potential explanations for how that might occur, on
various time scales and various levels of analysis (neurological
explanations, evolutionary explanations, life-span developmental
explanations, operant-conditioning explanations, broad physiological
explanations, etc., etc.). So long as we keep our descriptions and
explanations clear, we will never make the mistake of substituting a
particular, narrow, type of explanation (e.g., neurological) for the thing
to be explained (e.g., that my behavior was directed towards an
in-the-woods bear). The bear you are thinking of is in the woods, and even
if we later find out that there is not a bear in the woods, the bear of
your thoughts, the bear your behavior was directed at, the bear your
behavior was a reliable function of, *is* in the woods. At this point, we
are in E. B. Holt's domain - and Holt sees himself as providing the logical
end point of William James's work - and James's work is heavily influenced
by Peirce.

So... John which of those questions were you asking? Or do none of
those match up?


---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist
American University - Adjunct Instructor



On Fri, Dec 6, 2019 at 9:28 AM John Kennison  wrote:

> Hi Nick, and Eric,
>
> I am grappling with Nick's ideas that mental states must be physical
> things and even are "out there" rather than "in here". What about
> delusions? If I think I see bear in the woods but I am mistaken, is this
> false perception "out there" even when the bear is not?
>
> --John
> --
> *From:* Friam  on behalf of Eric Charles <
> eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 5, 2019 8:41 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam@redfish.com>
> *Subject:* [EXT] Re: [FRIAM] A pluralistic model of the mind?
>
> Nick,
> Your need to complicate things is fascinating. You are a monist. You are a
> monist is the sense of not thinking that "mental" things and "physical"
> things are made of different stuffs. At that point, you can throw a new
> word in the mix (e.g., 'experience', 'neutral stuff'), or you can throw
> your hat in with one or the other side of the original division, e.g., "I
> am a materialist" or "I am an idealist". To that, you add the insight that
> that later discussion is all a bit weird, because once you have decided to
> be a monist it weirdly doesn't matter much what you call the stuff.That
> insight is in need of support, because the old dichotomy is so built in to
> our language and culture that the claim it doesn't matter which side you
> choose is very unintuitive. That is solid, and you should develop it
> further.
>
> Instead, you bring up some sort of discussion about serial vs. parallel
> processing that has nothing to do with that topic at all, then you muddle
> the issues up. Whether you think of "consciousness" as "serial" or
> "parallel" has no bearing on the prior issue. Given that you are talking
> with a bunch of computationally minded people, and that you brought up
> Turing Machines, the first problem is that a serial system can simulate a
> parallel system, so while parallel buys you time savings (sometimes a
> little, sometimes a lot), it doesn't change what the system is capable of
> in any more fundamental way (assuming you are still limited to writing
> zeros and ones). But you don't even need that, because it just doesn't
> matter. Being a "monist" has nothing to do with the serial vs. parallel
> issue at all. There is no reason a body can't be doing many things at once.
> Or, you can change your level of analysis and somehow set up your
> definition so that there is only one thing the body is doing, but that one
> thing has parts. It is just a word game at that point. If I have a 5-berry
> pie, is it 5 different types of pie at once, or is it its own 1 flavor of
> pie? We can talk about the pros and cons of labeling it different ways, but
> it is the same thing whichever way we label it and... it has nothing to
> do with monism vs. dualism
>
> Admonishment over.
>
> So... Say more about the

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[thompnickson2]

Elegant, Glen, and you caused me truly to wonder:  Is the population mean, mu,  
of statistics fame, of a different substance than the individual measurements, 
the bar x's that are stabs at it?  But I think the answer is no.  It is just 
one among the others, a citizen king amongst those bar-x's, the one on which 
the others will converge in a normally distributed world.  I guess that makes 
me a frequentist, right?  

And it's not strictly true that Mu is beyond my reach.  I may have already 
reached it with the sample I now hold in my hand.  I just will never be sure 
that I have reached it.  

Could you, Dave, and I perhaps all agree that all ==>certainty<== is illusory?  

I don't think that's going to assuage you.  

I am going to have to think more. 

Ugh!  I hate when that happens. 

Nick 



Nick Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
thompnicks...@gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
 


-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Friday, December 6, 2019 5:08 PM
To: FriAM 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

But doesn't it mean that, since no experience will ever *fully prove out*, that 
a fully proved out experience is something we will "never truly grasp"? Doesn't 
the provisionality imply that *all* experience is illusory? And, then, if there 
is such a thing as a "fully proved out experience", then you're back to 2 
things not fully proved out vs. fully proved out?

Of course, my point goes back to scale ... again ... there's a little proved 
out, a medium amount of proved out, and a lot proved out. But I don't want to 
put words in your mouth. 8^)

On 12/6/19 11:49 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> */both equally illusory./*
> 
> I think “illusory” is used here, in your way, not in the way I would 
> use it, but to refer to the world that truly is but which we an never truly 
> grasp.  I.e., dualistically.  For me, an illusion is just an experience that 
> does not prove out.  I arrive at my coffee house three days in a row and 
> there is a “day old” old-fashioned plain donut available for purchase at half 
> price.  I experience that “donut at 4” is something I can count on.  That 
> turns out not to be the case because, another customer starts coming in at 
> 3.59 and commandeering all the donuts.  My experience was illusory.  Or, 
> think flips of a coin.  You flip a coin 7 times heads and you come to the 
> conclusion that the coin is biased.  However, you flip it a thousand times 
> more and its behavior over the 1007 flips is consistent with randomness.  You 
> come to the conclusion that the bias was probably an illusion.
> 
> My understanding of illusory is probabilistic and provisional.

--
☣ uǝlƃ


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe 
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[uǝlƃ ☣]

But doesn't it mean that, since no experience will ever *fully prove out*, that 
a fully proved out experience is something we will "never truly grasp"? Doesn't 
the provisionality imply that *all* experience is illusory? And, then, if there 
is such a thing as a "fully proved out experience", then you're back to 2 
things not fully proved out vs. fully proved out?

Of course, my point goes back to scale ... again ... there's a little proved 
out, a medium amount of proved out, and a lot proved out. But I don't want to 
put words in your mouth. 8^)

On 12/6/19 11:49 AM, thompnicks...@gmail.com wrote:
> */both equally illusory./*
> 
> I think “illusory” is used here, in your way, not in the way I would use it, 
> but to refer to the world that truly is but which we an never truly grasp.  
> I.e., dualistically.  For me, an illusion is just an experience that does not 
> prove out.  I arrive at my coffee house three days in a row and there is a 
> “day old” old-fashioned plain donut available for purchase at half price.  I 
> experience that “donut at 4” is something I can count on.  That turns out not 
> to be the case because, another customer starts coming in at 3.59 and 
> commandeering all the donuts.  My experience was illusory.  Or, think flips 
> of a coin.  You flip a coin 7 times heads and you come to the conclusion that 
> the coin is biased.  However, you flip it a thousand times more and its 
> behavior over the 1007 flips is consistent with randomness.  You come to the 
> conclusion that the bias was probably an illusion. 
> 
> My understanding of illusory is probabilistic and provisional. 

-- 
☣ uǝlƃ


FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[thompnickson2]

Hi, David, 

 

Thanks for channeling me so accurately.  It is a talent to channel what one 
does not agree with so faithfully that the person channeled is satisfied.   
Thank you for that.  

 

I would have only one ill-ease, about the last part of your version: 

 

both equally illusory.

 

I think “illusory” is used here, in your way, not in the way I would use it, 
but to refer to the world that truly is but which we an never truly grasp.  
I.e., dualistically.  For me, an illusion is just an experience that does not 
prove out.  I arrive at my coffee house three days in a row and there is a “day 
old” old-fashioned plain donut available for purchase at half price.  I 
experience that “donut at 4” is something I can count on.  That turns out not 
to be the case because, another customer starts coming in at 3.59 and 
commandeering all the donuts.  My experience was illusory.  Or, think flips of 
a coin.  You flip a coin 7 times heads and you come to the conclusion that the 
coin is biased.  However, you flip it a thousand times more and its behavior 
over the 1007 flips is consistent with randomness.  You come to the conclusion 
that the bias was probably an illusion.  

 

My understanding of illusory is probabilistic and provisional.  

 

Nick 

 

 

Nick Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

ThompNickSon2@gmail.comhttps://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Friday, December 6, 2019 10:16 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

 

I dare not really speak for Nick, but I think the essence of his position is 
that there is no "out there" nor is there any "in here." There is only a flow 
of "experience" that is sometimes "evaluated" (interpreted?) to a false 
distinction of in or out — both equally illusory.

 

davew

 

 

On Fri, Dec 6, 2019, at 3:27 PM, John Kennison wrote:

Hi Nick, and Eric,

 

I am grappling with Nick's ideas that mental states must be physical things and 
even are "out there" rather than "in here". What about delusions? If I think I 
see bear in the woods but I am mistaken, is this false perception "out there" 
even when the bear is not? 

 

--John

 


  _  


 

From: Friam mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> > on 
behalf of Eric Charles mailto:eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com> >
Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2019 8:41 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group mailto:friam@redfish.com> >
Subject: [EXT] Re: [FRIAM] A pluralistic model of the mind? 

 

Nick,  

Your need to complicate things is fascinating. You are a monist. You are a 
monist is the sense of not thinking that "mental" things and "physical" things 
are made of different stuffs. At that point, you can throw a new word in the 
mix (e.g., 'experience', 'neutral stuff'), or you can throw your hat in with 
one or the other side of the original division, e.g., "I am a materialist" or 
"I am an idealist". To that, you add the insight that that later discussion is 
all a bit weird, because once you have decided to be a monist it weirdly 
doesn't matter much what you call the stuff.That insight is in need of support, 
because the old dichotomy is so built in to our language and culture that the 
claim it doesn't matter which side you choose is very unintuitive. That is 
solid, and you should develop it further. 

 

Instead, you bring up some sort of discussion about serial vs. parallel 
processing that has nothing to do with that topic at all, then you muddle the 
issues up. Whether you think of "consciousness" as "serial" or "parallel" has 
no bearing on the prior issue. Given that you are talking with a bunch of 
computationally minded people, and that you brought up Turing Machines, the 
first problem is that a serial system can simulate a parallel system, so while 
parallel buys you time savings (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot), it 
doesn't change what the system is capable of in any more fundamental way 
(assuming you are still limited to writing zeros and ones). But you don't even 
need that, because it just doesn't matter. Being a "monist" has nothing to do 
with the serial vs. parallel issue at all. There is no reason a body can't be 
doing many things at once. Or, you can change your level of analysis and 
somehow set up your definition so that there is only one thing the body is 
doing, but that one thing has parts. It is just a word game at that point. If I 
have a 5-berry pie, is it 5 different types of pie at once, or is it its own 1 
flavor of pie? We can talk about the pros and cons of labeling it different 
ways, but it is the same thing whichever way we label it and... it has 
nothing to do with monism vs. dualism

 

Admonishment over.

 

So... Say more about th

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Prof David West]

I dare not really speak for Nick, but I think the essence of his position is 
that there is no "out there" nor is there any "in here." There is only a flow 
of "experience" that is sometimes "evaluated" (interpreted?) to a false 
distinction of in or out — both equally illusory.

davew


On Fri, Dec 6, 2019, at 3:27 PM, John Kennison wrote:
> Hi Nick, and Eric,
> 
> I am grappling with Nick's ideas that mental states must be physical things 
> and even are "out there" rather than "in here". What about delusions? If I 
> think I see bear in the woods but I am mistaken, is this false perception 
> "out there" even when the bear is not? 
> 
> --John
> 
> 
> *From:* Friam  on behalf of Eric Charles 
> 
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 5, 2019 8:41 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> *Subject:* [EXT] Re: [FRIAM] A pluralistic model of the mind? 
> 
> Nick, 
> Your need to complicate things is fascinating. You are a monist. You are a 
> monist is the sense of not thinking that "mental" things and "physical" 
> things are made of different stuffs. At that point, you can throw a new word 
> in the mix (e.g., 'experience', 'neutral stuff'), or you can throw your hat 
> in with one or the other side of the original division, e.g., "I am a 
> materialist" or "I am an idealist". To that, you add the insight that that 
> later discussion is all a bit weird, because once you have decided to be a 
> monist it weirdly doesn't matter much what you call the stuff.That insight is 
> in need of support, because the old dichotomy is so built in to our language 
> and culture that the claim it doesn't matter which side you choose is very 
> unintuitive. That is solid, and you should develop it further. 
> 
> Instead, you bring up some sort of discussion about serial vs. parallel 
> processing that has nothing to do with that topic at all, then you muddle the 
> issues up. Whether you think of "consciousness" as "serial" or "parallel" has 
> no bearing on the prior issue. Given that you are talking with a bunch of 
> computationally minded people, and that you brought up Turing Machines, the 
> first problem is that a serial system can simulate a parallel system, so 
> while parallel buys you time savings (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot), 
> it doesn't change what the system is capable of in any more fundamental way 
> (assuming you are still limited to writing zeros and ones). But you don't 
> even need that, because it just doesn't matter. Being a "monist" has nothing 
> to do with the serial vs. parallel issue at all. There is no reason a body 
> can't be doing many things at once. Or, you can change your level of analysis 
> and somehow set up your definition so that there is only one thing the body 
> is doing, but that one thing has parts. It is just a word game at that point. 
> If I have a 5-berry pie, is it 5 different types of pie at once, or is it its 
> own 1 flavor of pie? We can talk about the pros and cons of labeling it 
> different ways, but it is the same thing whichever way we label it and... 
> it has nothing to do with monism vs. dualism
> 
> Admonishment over.
> 
> So... Say more about the monism part... That is a solid issue and you are 
> getting somewhere with it...
> 
> It SEEMS so important a difference if one person claims that all we can never 
> know is ideas ("You don't know 'the chair', just your idea of the chair!") 
> and another person claims that knowing isn't ever a thing and that there is 
> just material ("There is no 'idea' of the chair, there is only your physical 
> body in relation to the physical world!"). It seems that they are making 
> vastly different claims, and that they should disagree about almost 
> everything. How is it that THAT doesn't matter? 
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
> ---
> 
> Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
>  Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist
> American University - Adjunct Instructor
> 
 <mailto:echar...@american.edu>
> 
> 
> On Thu, Dec 5, 2019 at 1:20 AM  wrote:
>> Hi, everybody, 

>> __ __

>> I have gotten all the communications off of nabble and concentrated them 
>> below. If you read this message in plain text, a lot of useful formatting 
>> will go away, so I encourage you to enable HTML. Or perhaps, I can fit it 
>> all up as a Word file, tomorrow.

>> __ __

>> . I have not had time to dig into the contents much. I am pleased that 
>> everybody took the issue straight on, and I look forward to grappling with 
>> your comments.

>> __ __

>> **A 

Re: [FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[John Kennison]

Hi Nick, and Eric,

I am grappling with Nick's ideas that mental states must be physical things and 
even are "out there" rather than "in here". What about delusions? If I think I 
see bear in the woods but I am mistaken, is this false perception "out there" 
even when the bear is not?

--John

From: Friam  on behalf of Eric Charles 

Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2019 8:41 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
Subject: [EXT] Re: [FRIAM] A pluralistic model of the mind?

Nick,
Your need to complicate things is fascinating. You are a monist. You are a 
monist is the sense of not thinking that "mental" things and "physical" things 
are made of different stuffs. At that point, you can throw a new word in the 
mix (e.g., 'experience', 'neutral stuff'), or you can throw your hat in with 
one or the other side of the original division, e.g., "I am a materialist" or 
"I am an idealist". To that, you add the insight that that later discussion is 
all a bit weird, because once you have decided to be a monist it weirdly 
doesn't matter much what you call the stuff.That insight is in need of support, 
because the old dichotomy is so built in to our language and culture that the 
claim it doesn't matter which side you choose is very unintuitive. That is 
solid, and you should develop it further.

Instead, you bring up some sort of discussion about serial vs. parallel 
processing that has nothing to do with that topic at all, then you muddle the 
issues up. Whether you think of "consciousness" as "serial" or "parallel" has 
no bearing on the prior issue. Given that you are talking with a bunch of 
computationally minded people, and that you brought up Turing Machines, the 
first problem is that a serial system can simulate a parallel system, so while 
parallel buys you time savings (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot), it 
doesn't change what the system is capable of in any more fundamental way 
(assuming you are still limited to writing zeros and ones). But you don't even 
need that, because it just doesn't matter. Being a "monist" has nothing to do 
with the serial vs. parallel issue at all. There is no reason a body can't be 
doing many things at once. Or, you can change your level of analysis and 
somehow set up your definition so that there is only one thing the body is 
doing, but that one thing has parts. It is just a word game at that point. If I 
have a 5-berry pie, is it 5 different types of pie at once, or is it its own 1 
flavor of pie? We can talk about the pros and cons of labeling it different 
ways, but it is the same thing whichever way we label it and... it has 
nothing to do with monism vs. dualism

Admonishment over.

So... Say more about the monism part... That is a solid issue and you are 
getting somewhere with it...

It SEEMS so important a difference if one person claims that all we can never 
know is ideas ("You don't know 'the chair', just your idea of the chair!") and 
another person claims that knowing isn't ever a thing and that there is just 
material ("There is no 'idea' of the chair, there is only your physical body in 
relation to the physical world!"). It seems that they are making vastly 
different claims, and that they should disagree about almost everything. How is 
it that THAT doesn't matter?

Eric


---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist
American University - Adjunct Instructor
<mailto:echar...@american.edu>


On Thu, Dec 5, 2019 at 1:20 AM 
mailto:thompnicks...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Hi, everybody,



I have gotten all the communications off of nabble and concentrated them below. 
 If you read this message in plain text, a lot of useful formatting will go 
away, so I encourage you to enable HTML.  Or perhaps, I can fit it all up as a 
Word file, tomorrow.



.  I have not had time to dig into the contents much.  I am pleased that 
everybody took the issue straight on, and I look forward to grappling with your 
comments.



A recapitulation of the thread:



First, some text from the review which Roger sent:



This is exactly as radical as it sounds. Bishop Berkeley and other idealists 
argued that objects are dependent on mind; Manzotti argues the reverse of this: 
Mind exists in objects. In The Spread Mind, Manzotti contends that we are 
mistaken to believe that objects “do not depend on our presence. . . . Our 
bodies enable processes that change the ontology of the world. Our bodies bring 
into existence the physical objects with which our experience is identical. We 
are our experience. We are not our bodies.” And later: “We are the world and 
the world is us—everything is physical.” This includes dreams, hallucinations, 
memories—all are the imagined physical objects themselves, not neural firings 
or mental representations (we mus