Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
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Re: Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
 
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Time for an aphorism!
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Bertrand Russell -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of g??? ? Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2017 2:32 PM To: FriAM <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Doxastic logic - Wikipedia No regrets or apology are needed. And even if we are about to "argue about words" ... I forget what famous dead white guy said that ... it's still useful to me. You say: "if one acts in the assurance that some fact is the case, one cannot be said to really doubt it" The answer is clarified by reading Marcus' post. If you act with assurance, then you're not open to changing your mind. So, you've simply moved the goal posts or passed the buck. I *never* act with assurance, as far as I can tell. Every thing I do seems plagued with doubt. I can force myself out of this state with some activities. Running more than 3 miles does it. Math sometimes does it. Beer does it. Etc. But for almost every other action, I do doubt it. So, I don't think we're having the discussion James and Peirce might have. I think we're talking about two different types of people, those with a tendency to believe their own beliefs and those who tend to disbelieve their own beliefs. Maybe it's because people who act with assurance are just smarter than people like me? I don't know. It's important in this modern world, what with our affirmation bubbles, fake news, and whatnot. What is it that makes people prefer to associate with people whose beliefs they share? What makes some people prefer the company of people different from them? Etc. On 09/21/2017 01:20 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > I am afraid this discussion is about to dissolve into a quibble about the meaning of the words "doubt" and "belief", but let's take it one more round. In my use of the words ... and I think Peirce's ... one can entertain a doubt without "really" having one. Knowledge of perception tells us that every perceived "fact" is an inference subject to doubt and yet, if one acts in the assurance that some fact is the case, one cannot be said to really doubt it, can one? It follows, then, that to the extent that we act on our perceptions, we act without doubt on expectations that are doubtable. > > Eric Charles may be able to help me with this: there is some debate between William James and Peirce about whether the man, being chased by the bear who pauses at the edge of the chasm, and then leaps across it, doubted at the moment of leaping that he could make the jump. I think James says Yes and Peirce says No. If that is the argument we are having, then I am satisfied we have wrung everything we can out of it. > > Anyway. I regret being cranky, but I can't seem to stop. Is that another example of what we are talking about here? -- ☣ gⅼеɳ ============================================================ 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 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
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In reply to this post by gepr
Somehow I imagine that Nick means to say there are costly signals in this game — that motor action is thicker than conversation or reflection.
If I am walking across a snowfield that I know to be filled with crevasses, and I know I can’t tell which snow holds weight and which doesn’t, my movement is really different than it is putting my feet on the floor beside the bed in the morning. To take a different example that is counterfactual but easier to use in invoking the real physiological paralysis, if Thank God Ledge on halfdome were not actually a solid ledge, but a fragile bridge, or if there had been a rockfall that left part of it missing and I were blindfolded, or if I were a prisoner of pirates blindfolded and made to walk the plank, my steps would land differently than they do when I get out of bed in the morning. There I didn’t say what anyone else would do in any circumstance, but did claim that my own motions have different regimes that are viscerally _very_ distinct. I’m not sure I can think about whether I would fight for air when being drowned. It might be atavistic and beyond anything I normally refer to as “thought”. I certainly have had people claim to me that that is the case. Those distinctions may occupy a different plane than the distinction between reasonableness and dogmatism all in the world of conversation and the social exchange. But I should not speak for others. Only for myself as a spectator. Eric > On Sep 21, 2017, at 4:32 PM, gⅼеɳ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote: > > No regrets or apology are needed. And even if we are about to "argue about words" ... I forget what famous dead white guy said that ... it's still useful to me. > > You say: "if one acts in the assurance that some fact is the case, one cannot be said to really doubt it" The answer is clarified by reading Marcus' post. If you act with assurance, then you're not open to changing your mind. So, you've simply moved the goal posts or passed the buck. > > I *never* act with assurance, as far as I can tell. Every thing I do seems plagued with doubt. I can force myself out of this state with some activities. Running more than 3 miles does it. Math sometimes does it. Beer does it. Etc. But for almost every other action, I do doubt it. So, I don't think we're having the discussion James and Peirce might have. I think we're talking about two different types of people, those with a tendency to believe their own beliefs and those who tend to disbelieve their own beliefs. > > Maybe it's because people who act with assurance are just smarter than people like me? I don't know. It's important in this modern world, what with our affirmation bubbles, fake news, and whatnot. What is it that makes people prefer to associate with people whose beliefs they share? What makes some people prefer the company of people different from them? Etc. > > > On 09/21/2017 01:20 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: >> I am afraid this discussion is about to dissolve into a quibble about the meaning of the words "doubt" and "belief", but let's take it one more round. In my use of the words ... and I think Peirce's ... one can entertain a doubt without "really" having one. Knowledge of perception tells us that every perceived "fact" is an inference subject to doubt and yet, if one acts in the assurance that some fact is the case, one cannot be said to really doubt it, can one? It follows, then, that to the extent that we act on our perceptions, we act without doubt on expectations that are doubtable. >> >> Eric Charles may be able to help me with this: there is some debate between William James and Peirce about whether the man, being chased by the bear who pauses at the edge of the chasm, and then leaps across it, doubted at the moment of leaping that he could make the jump. I think James says Yes and Peirce says No. If that is the argument we are having, then I am satisfied we have wrung everything we can out of it. >> >> Anyway. I regret being cranky, but I can't seem to stop. Is that another example of what we are talking about here? > > -- > ☣ gⅼеɳ > > ============================================================ > 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 > 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
Ok. Self-reflection time. 1. Ah! Perhaps we ARE just quibbling about meanings. To what extent does action based on assumption, A, imply that at the moment of acting, one holds A as a belief? I seem to be claiming that it does so as a matter of logic; perhaps the rest of you think it is an empirical claim. 2. I have not defended my trotting out Peirce as if he were God, particularly given that I have done so in commentary on others trotting out Feynman as if HE were God. I do so because it is easier for me to figure out what somebody else thinks than to figure out what I think, and also if feels less narcissistic. But as Glen points out, this benefit is ephemeral because, of course, [What I think Peirce thinks] is just [Something that I think] and others may wisely doubt that I have Peirce right. 3. I now know why I am being cranky. I am supposed to be winterizing the Massachusetts house and packing to travel to Santa Fe. I hate travel, I hate winterizing, and I hate packing. From my actions, I surmise that I have been acting in the belief that I will be happier if I start a fight on FRIAM then if I put my head down and do the things I am supposed to be doing. Sober reflection suggests that I may be wrong in that belief. Will this reflection result in a change in my beliefs? Only my actions will tell. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels There is nothing that infuriates me more than trying to solve a problem with/for someone is confident in their hypothesis for no reason other than a few past experiences. No we definitely can live with doubt. For goodness sake we have Donald as president. It is a personality disorder when people can’t depart from their priors in the face of actual evidence. From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Thompson Dear Glen, I don't know why I am so pissed at Feynman right now but this quote: "When you doubt and ask, it gets a little harder to believe. I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things. I'm not absolutely sure of anything. And there are many things Ι don't know anything about. But Ι don't have to know an answer. I don't ... Ι don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as Ι can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me." … is another one of those sentiments that we would immediately recognise as absurd if Feynman hadn’t said it. Peirce would say, for the most part, we cannot live in doubt. We cannot doubt that the floor is still under our feet when we put our legs out of the bed in the morning or that the visual field is whole, even though our eyes tell us that there are two gian holes in it. Every perception is doubtable in the sense that Feynman so vaingloriously lays out here, yet for the most part we live in a world of inferred expectations which are largely confirmed. Like the other Feynman quote, it is wise only when we stipulate what is absurd about it and make something wise and noble of what is left. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- A better Feynman quote that targets this issue is this one, I think from a BBC interview: "When you doubt and ask, it gets a little harder to believe. I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things. I'm not absolutely sure of anything. And there are many things Ι don't know anything about. But Ι don't have to know an answer. I don't ... Ι don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the unverse without having any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as Ι can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me." He was talking in the context of religion, but I think it applies to every type of "knowledge", including the "thought manipulation" that is philosophy. The point is not that "thought manipulation" can never be useful. But that one can _justifiably_ take the position that philosophy should (moral imperative) be done in the _service_ of something else. You cited Smullyan in the OP, which is relevant. Many of Smullyan's publications are puzzles, games. Some of us simply enjoy puzzles. (I don't.) But every puzzle is a math problem. It's up to the puzzle solver to settle on why they're solving puzzles. Are they doing it because it FEELS good? Or are they doing it because either the solutions or the exercises facilitate some other objective? Some puzzle solvers (e.g. video gamers) find themselves in a defensive position, trying to justify their fetish against the world around them. The silly rancor many "practical" people aim at philosophers can make some of them defensive. And it's a real shame that we shame philosophers for doing it just because they enjoy it. But it moves from merely shameful to outright dangerous when a philosopher can't distinguish their own _why_. Someone who does it because it's fun shouldn't waste any time yapping about how useful it is. And someone who does it because it's useful shouldn't waste any time yapping about how fun it is. Get over it. Be confident. Engage your fetish and ignore the nay-sayers. On 09/21/2017 09:53 AM, Steven A Smith wrote: > Glen - > > I share your use of the term "Science" as in being an activity (roughly) defined by "the Scientific Method" just as I use the term "Art" as the process rather than the product (aka "Artifact"). > > When I do anything vaguely (or presumptively) artistic, I think of my role as that of an "Artifex" more than an "Artist" because I feel more emphasis on the conception/making than on being tuned into or tied into a larger, higher group/power which is how I read "Art and Artist". I have a similar ambivalence about "Scientist/Science". Despite degrees in Math and Physics, my practice has rarely involved actual Science (or more math than just really fancy arithmetic), though I have worked with "real Scientists" and close to "Scientific Progress" for most of my life. I don't even think of my work as having been that of an Engineer, but truly much closer to simply that of a "Technologist". And as everyone who has read my missives here can attest, my throwdown as a "Philosopher" is equally detuned... but suspect myself to oscillate wildly between the poles of "Philosopher" and "Philistine". All that rattled off, I truly value having enough understanding of all of these > ideals to recognize the differences qualitatively, and to have mildly informed opinions about the better and worser examples of each quantitatively. -- ☣ gⅼеɳ ============================================================ 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 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
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1. Empirical. 2. Freud is as close to God as early 20th century intellectuals can get. 3. Your rationalized procrastination makes sense to me. :-) Frank Frank Wimberly Phone (505) 670-9918 On Sep 21, 2017 2:46 PM, "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by David Eric Smith
Excellent digestion! I'll fully admit that my body has a kind of momentum. The running example is perfect. For the 1st mile (for certain), every breath and every step seems equivalently doubted, ungainly, awkward. As I literally force myself into the 2nd mile, I suspect my body changes. I begin thinking about other things. Some automatic part of me has begun to take control. By the 4th mile, I am completely automatic.
That automation seems to be a forcing structure. In contrast, when I'm doing calisthenics, I never achieve such automation. At any given position or movement, any one of my multifarious weaknesses might cause me to fail. My lower or upper back kinks or spasms, the cartiledge in my wrist will crumple, my epicondyl will sprain, etc. I can get into a kind of "flow" or groove when doing it, so that my self dissolves or I begin thinking about other things. But here, unlike running, as soon as I begin thinking about my body again, that momentum evaporates and I, again, doubt every movement. So, there are some types of activity that have more "convinced" regimes than other types of activity. In my 4th mile of running, I am like Nick, convinced of some "belief", with no doubt. But I never achieve that state in calisthenics. On 09/21/2017 01:44 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > Somehow I imagine that Nick means to say there are costly signals in this game — that motor action is thicker than conversation or reflection. > > If I am walking across a snowfield that I know to be filled with crevasses, and I know I can’t tell which snow holds weight and which doesn’t, my movement is really different than it is putting my feet on the floor beside the bed in the morning. > > To take a different example that is counterfactual but easier to use in invoking the real physiological paralysis, if Thank God Ledge on halfdome were not actually a solid ledge, but a fragile bridge, or if there had been a rockfall that left part of it missing and I were blindfolded, or if I were a prisoner of pirates blindfolded and made to walk the plank, my steps would land differently than they do when I get out of bed in the morning. > > There I didn’t say what anyone else would do in any circumstance, but did claim that my own motions have different regimes that are viscerally _very_ distinct. I’m not sure I can think about whether I would fight for air when being drowned. It might be atavistic and beyond anything I normally refer to as “thought”. I certainly have had people claim to me that that is the case. > > Those distinctions may occupy a different plane than the distinction between reasonableness and dogmatism all in the world of conversation and the social exchange. > > But I should not speak for others. Only for myself as a spectator. -- ☣ gⅼеɳ ============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Speaking for myself, I don’t hold A as an assumption. A is more like a function parameterized on relevant conditions that computes an expected value. Alternatively it could also be a predicate, but parameterized
on some threshold of risk and/or reward. If snows a little, I just jump in the car and go. If it is wet and cold and snowed a lot, I go look at the pavement, and consider the risks of not getting to where I might be expected or try to think of ways to mitigate
the risk (e.g. chains). Sometimes I miscalculate or misapprehend the risks and rewards, like the time the car was acting up, but I felt I needed to get to work to take a large supercomputer reservation. (I kept going and the car broke a tie rod and was
ruined!) And I never just hop out of bed without looking because the dog could be there. From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Nick Thompson Ok. Self-reflection time. 1.
Ah! Perhaps we ARE just quibbling about meanings. To what extent does action based on assumption, A, imply that at the moment of acting, one holds A as a belief? I seem to be claiming that it does
so as a matter of logic; perhaps the rest of you think it is an empirical claim.
2.
I have not defended my trotting out Peirce as if he were God, particularly given that I have done so in commentary on others trotting out Feynman as if HE were God. I do so because it is easier for
me to figure out what somebody else thinks than to figure out what I think, and also if feels less narcissistic. But as Glen points out, this benefit is ephemeral because, of course, [What I think Peirce thinks] is just [Something that I think] and others
may wisely doubt that I have Peirce right. 3.
I now know why I am being cranky. I am supposed to be winterizing the Massachusetts house and packing to travel to Santa Fe. I hate travel, I hate winterizing, and I hate packing. From my actions,
I surmise that I have been acting in the belief that I will be happier if I start a fight on FRIAM then if I put my head down and do the things I am supposed to be doing. Sober reflection suggests that I may be wrong in that belief. Will this reflection
result in a change in my beliefs? Only my actions will tell. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University From: Friam [[hidden email]]
On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels There is nothing that infuriates me more than trying to solve a problem with/for someone is confident in their hypothesis for no reason other than a few past experiences. No we definitely can live with doubt.
For goodness sake we have Donald as president. It is a personality disorder when people can’t depart from their priors in the face of actual evidence. From: Friam [[hidden email]]
On Behalf Of Nick Thompson Dear Glen, I don't know why I am so pissed at Feynman right now but this quote: "When you doubt and ask, it gets a little harder to believe. I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might
be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things. I'm not absolutely sure of anything. And there are many things Ι don't know anything about. But Ι don't have to know an answer. I don't ...
Ι don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as Ι can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me." … is another one of those sentiments that we would immediately recognise as absurd if Feynman hadn’t said it.
Peirce would say, for the most part, we cannot live in doubt. We cannot doubt that the floor is still under our feet when we put our legs out of the bed in the morning or that the visual field is whole, even though our eyes tell us
that there are two gian holes in it. Every perception is doubtable in the sense that Feynman so vaingloriously lays out here, yet for the most part we live in a world of inferred expectations which are largely confirmed. Like the other Feynman quote, it
is wise only when we stipulate what is absurd about it and make something wise and noble of what is left.
Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- A better Feynman quote that targets this issue is this one, I think from a BBC interview: "When you doubt and ask, it gets a little harder to believe. I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate
answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things. I'm not absolutely sure of anything. And there are many things Ι don't know anything about. But Ι don't have to know an answer. I don't ... Ι don't feel frightened by
not knowing things, by being lost in the unverse without having any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as Ι can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me." He was talking in the context of religion, but I think it applies to every type of "knowledge", including the "thought manipulation" that is philosophy. The point is not that "thought manipulation" can never be useful. But that one
can _justifiably_ take the position that philosophy should (moral imperative) be done in the _service_ of something else. You cited Smullyan in the OP, which is relevant. Many of Smullyan's publications are puzzles, games. Some of us simply enjoy puzzles. (I don't.) But every puzzle is a math problem. It's up to the puzzle solver to settle on why they're
solving puzzles. Are they doing it because it FEELS good? Or are they doing it because either the solutions or the exercises facilitate some other objective? Some puzzle solvers (e.g. video gamers) find themselves in a defensive position, trying to justify
their fetish against the world around them. The silly rancor many "practical" people aim at philosophers can make some of them defensive. And it's a real shame that we shame philosophers for doing it just because they enjoy it. But it moves from merely shameful to outright dangerous when a philosopher can't distinguish their own _why_. Someone who does it because it's fun shouldn't waste any time yapping about how useful it is. And someone who does it because
it's useful shouldn't waste any time yapping about how fun it is. Get over it. Be confident. Engage your fetish and ignore the nay-sayers. On 09/21/2017 09:53 AM, Steven A Smith wrote: > Glen - > > I share your use of the term "Science" as in being an activity (roughly) defined by "the Scientific Method" just as I use the term "Art" as the process rather than the product (aka "Artifact"). > > When I do anything vaguely (or presumptively) artistic, I think of my role as that of an "Artifex" more than an "Artist" because I feel more emphasis on the conception/making than on being tuned into or tied into a larger, higher group/power
which is how I read "Art and Artist". I have a similar ambivalence about "Scientist/Science". Despite degrees in Math and Physics, my practice has rarely involved actual Science (or more math than just really fancy arithmetic), though I have worked with
"real Scientists" and close to "Scientific Progress" for most of my life. I don't even think of my work as having been that of an Engineer, but truly much closer to simply that of a "Technologist". And as everyone who has read my missives here can attest,
my throwdown as a "Philosopher" is equally detuned... but suspect myself to oscillate wildly between the poles of "Philosopher" and "Philistine". All that rattled off, I truly value having enough understanding of all of these > ideals to recognize the differences qualitatively, and to have mildly informed opinions about the better and worser examples of each quantitatively. -- ☣ gⅼеɳ ============================================================ 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 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
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I believe you all have too much free time. -- rec -- On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 5:01 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by David Eric Smith
Thanks, Eric. Great as always to hear from you.
One of the surest ways to avoid packing and winterizing a house is to make a dumb statement and then spend the next week defending it on a list-serv. I am not quite sure I am in that territory, yet, but I am entertaining doubts. As a behaviorist, I have to concede that it is possible to act tentatively. When I am meeting a dog for the first time, I extend the back of my hand into the danger zone near its muzzle, rather than putting out my hand confidently and stroking its neck, head, or flank. This allows the dog a chance to smell my hand and me a chance to gauge its intentions. Am I acting in doubt. I guess it depends on what the proposition is. If the proposition is that I am safe to reach out and pet the dog, I definitely doubt that. If the proposition is that no dog is safe to touch on the first meeting, then my tentative behavior affirms that belief. Peirce defined belief as that upon which we act and doubt as the absence of belief. It follows logically that anything we act on affirms some belief and, therefore, at the moment of action, extinguishes all contrary beliefs. If you follow me here, I may appear to win the argument, but only on sophistic points. Allow me to go for a KO. When you are interacting with humans, how exactly DO you decide what they believe? What are the practices you would engage in to test the belief of somebody. Can you imagine a test of some belief that would allow you to infer that I believe something even though my actions are inconsistent with that belief? Would that be rational on your part, or just evidence of your Christian good nature? Or your belief in a non-material mind? All the best, Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Smith Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2017 4:44 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Doxastic logic - Wikipedia Somehow I imagine that Nick means to say there are costly signals in this game — that motor action is thicker than conversation or reflection. If I am walking across a snowfield that I know to be filled with crevasses, and I know I can’t tell which snow holds weight and which doesn’t, my movement is really different than it is putting my feet on the floor beside the bed in the morning. To take a different example that is counterfactual but easier to use in invoking the real physiological paralysis, if Thank God Ledge on halfdome were not actually a solid ledge, but a fragile bridge, or if there had been a rockfall that left part of it missing and I were blindfolded, or if I were a prisoner of pirates blindfolded and made to walk the plank, my steps would land differently than they do when I get out of bed in the morning. There I didn’t say what anyone else would do in any circumstance, but did claim that my own motions have different regimes that are viscerally _very_ distinct. I’m not sure I can think about whether I would fight for air when being drowned. It might be atavistic and beyond anything I normally refer to as “thought”. I certainly have had people claim to me that that is the case. Those distinctions may occupy a different plane than the distinction between reasonableness and dogmatism all in the world of conversation and the social exchange. But I should not speak for others. Only for myself as a spectator. Eric > On Sep 21, 2017, at 4:32 PM, gⅼеɳ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote: > > No regrets or apology are needed. And even if we are about to "argue about words" ... I forget what famous dead white guy said that ... it's still useful to me. > > You say: "if one acts in the assurance that some fact is the case, one cannot be said to really doubt it" The answer is clarified by reading Marcus' post. If you act with assurance, then you're not open to changing your mind. So, you've simply moved the goal posts or passed the buck. > > I *never* act with assurance, as far as I can tell. Every thing I do seems plagued with doubt. I can force myself out of this state with some activities. Running more than 3 miles does it. Math sometimes does it. Beer does it. Etc. But for almost every other action, I do doubt it. So, I don't think we're having the discussion James and Peirce might have. I think we're talking about two different types of people, those with a tendency to believe their own beliefs and those who tend to disbelieve their own beliefs. > > Maybe it's because people who act with assurance are just smarter than people like me? I don't know. It's important in this modern world, what with our affirmation bubbles, fake news, and whatnot. What is it that makes people prefer to associate with people whose beliefs they share? What makes some people prefer the company of people different from them? Etc. > > > On 09/21/2017 01:20 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: >> I am afraid this discussion is about to dissolve into a quibble about the meaning of the words "doubt" and "belief", but let's take it one more round. In my use of the words ... and I think Peirce's ... one can entertain a doubt without "really" having one. Knowledge of perception tells us that every perceived "fact" is an inference subject to doubt and yet, if one acts in the assurance that some fact is the case, one cannot be said to really doubt it, can one? It follows, then, that to the extent that we act on our perceptions, we act without doubt on expectations that are doubtable. >> >> Eric Charles may be able to help me with this: there is some debate between William James and Peirce about whether the man, being chased by the bear who pauses at the edge of the chasm, and then leaps across it, doubted at the moment of leaping that he could make the jump. I think James says Yes and Peirce says No. If that is the argument we are having, then I am satisfied we have wrung everything we can out of it. >> >> Anyway. I regret being cranky, but I can't seem to stop. Is that another example of what we are talking about here? > > -- > ☣ gⅼеɳ > > ============================================================ > 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 > 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 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2
If I carry on for another 45 minutes it will be time to cook dinner and I cannot either pack or winterize for yet another day. May God have mercy on my soul. n Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly 1. Empirical. 2. Freud is as close to God as early 20th century intellectuals can get. 3. Your rationalized procrastination makes sense to me. :-) Frank Frank Wimberly On Sep 21, 2017 2:46 PM, "Nick Thompson" <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
If you, as a non-dualist, allow for tentative action, why not allow for tentative belief?
On 09/21/2017 02:20 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Peirce defined belief as that upon which we act and doubt as the absence of belief. It follows logically that anything we act on affirms some belief and, therefore, at the moment of action, extinguishes all contrary beliefs. If you follow me here, I may appear to win the argument, but only on sophistic points. -- ☣ gⅼеɳ ============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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Re: Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
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In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2
Thank you, Roger, for reading my mind. Hurry up and pack, Nick. I'm sure everyone misses you. On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 3:03 PM, Roger Critchlow <[hidden email]> wrote:
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA Visiting Professor in Integrative Peacebuilding Saint Paul University Ottawa, Ontario, Canada twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff ============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
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In reply to this post by Roger Critchlow-2
You should get back to talking to your television! From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]]
On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow I believe you all have too much free time. -- rec -- On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 5:01 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
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In reply to this post by gepr
Glen,
Well, answering in the sophistic manner, because logically speaking, acting tentatively affirms tentativeness. Let's me think about this for a moment. If acting and believing are inextricable then the following question becomes relevant. Is it possible (can you give me an example) of a contradictory ACTION. EG, can I both stop to pick up the Wheaties that I just dropped on the floor flake (that my wife will kill me for leaving there} and NOT stop to pick it up? Because, if we can have our cake and eat it to in the behavior department AND we are Peirceans, the we probably can have our cake and eat it too in the belief department. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of g??? ? Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2017 5:29 PM To: FriAM <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Doxastic logic - Wikipedia If you, as a non-dualist, allow for tentative action, why not allow for tentative belief? On 09/21/2017 02:20 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Peirce defined belief as that upon which we act and doubt as the absence of belief. It follows logically that anything we act on affirms some belief and, therefore, at the moment of action, extinguishes all contrary beliefs. If you follow me here, I may appear to win the argument, but only on sophistic points. -- ☣ gⅼеɳ ============================================================ 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 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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On 09/21/2017 04:50 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Well, answering in the sophistic manner, because logically speaking, acting tentatively affirms tentativeness. You seem to forget that there are many types of logic, paraconsistent, defeasible, higher order, etc. > Is it possible (can you give me an example) of a contradictory ACTION. Yes, of course. E.g. Since most of my actions involve very tight feedback loops, something like tossing a ball to a friend can be launched and then I can make attempts to abort it if, say, I notice the friend has looked away. Since I would claim that all actions are actually temporally extended processes rather than quantum events, I would claim that MOST actions involve branches and many branches can be reached from other branches. So, not only are they branched, but many of the branches don't "contradict" the other branches. -- ☣ gⅼеɳ ============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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Glen, See Larding below? Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- On 09/21/2017 04:50 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Well, answering in the sophistic manner, because logically speaking, acting tentatively affirms tentativeness. You seem to forget that there are many types of logic, paraconsistent, defeasible, higher order, etc [NST==> Is there any logic in which, “Let X be Y; therefore X is Y” is not entailed. If a belief is defined as that upon which one is prepared to act, is there any logic in which acting does not imply belief? <==nst] > Is it possible (can you give me an example) of a contradictory ACTION. Yes, of course. E.g. Since most of my actions involve very tight feedback loops, something like tossing a ball to a friend can be launched and then I can make attempts to abort it if, say, I notice the friend has looked away. [NST==>Wouldn’t the best way to analyze this be as a series of “micro” beliefs? <==nst] Since I would claim that all actions are actually temporally extended processes rather than quantum events, I would claim that MOST actions involve branches and many branches can be reached from other branches. So, not only are they branched, but many of the branches don't "contradict" the other branches. [NST==>I think a body can enact conflicting beliefs at the same time, but that is because I am comfortable with the idea that that the same body can simultaneously act on two different belief systems. CF Freud, slips of the tongue, hysteria, etc. Frank will correct me. Best, Nick <==nst] -- ☣ gⅼеɳ ============================================================ 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 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
I live in space, I only work in doubt.... On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 1:48 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Thanks Nick,
Yes, I understand the distinctions below. I am glad I opened with “Some how I imagine that…”, giving me enough wiggle room to have been wrong in the imagination to almost any degree. Small larding below, because I too have been under the gun to do something I don’t want to do, but there will be hell to pay for my stalling now. > As a behaviorist, I have to concede that it is possible to act tentatively. When I am meeting a dog for the first time, I extend the back of my hand into the danger zone near its muzzle, rather than putting out my hand confidently and stroking its neck, head, or flank. This allows the dog a chance to smell my hand and me a chance to gauge its intentions. Am I acting in doubt. I guess it depends on what the proposition is. If the proposition is that I am safe to reach out and pet the dog, I definitely doubt that. If the proposition is that no dog is safe to touch on the first meeting, then my tentative behavior affirms that belief. > > Peirce defined belief as that upon which we act and doubt as the absence of belief. It follows logically that anything we act on affirms some belief and, therefore, at the moment of action, extinguishes all contrary beliefs. If you follow me here, I may appear to win the argument, but only on sophistic points. I think I understand the alliance between the position you represent as Peirce’s, and behaviorism. With a lot of effort to stay in the discipline, and not slip back into reflecting my own intuitions, I could perhaps even mimic the kinds of arguments that this alliance makes. As you probably already know, I am comfortable enough working with even sometimes vaguely-understood terms that this position bothers me as bleaching language. If there were never a value-difference between what one was (or could have been) seen to do, and what was afterwards characterized as one’s beliefs at the time, then it is questionable whether there is any reason to have two words in the language. I imagine (again) that the adamant behaviorists would like to see the word “belief” expunged, though perhaps there is room in their lexicon to have to words that always take (as a matter of logic, or of construction) the same values, but which are allowed to carry different names because they are interfaces of those selfsame values to contexts or environments of different kinds. To me it seems more plausible that mental-state terms such as “belief” exist in the informal lexicon, as distinct from taken-action, not only because whatever our inner life is makes it appealing for us to use such terms, but also because there is an empirical, inter-subjectively available structure in tentativeness that the notion of beliefs as something with an independent existence from realized actions does a good job capturing. So not only are we inclined to use the word, but nature and discourse reinforce us to some extent in doing so. But at the same time as you probably know this is my preferred assumption, I read you as having energetically argued that it is invalid, against any number of opponents, so we let that stand. > Allow me to go for a KO. but that requires so little…. > When you are interacting with humans, how exactly DO you decide what they believe? If this were the only frame for such a question, would it not say that there is no referent for Ontology apart from a mirror of Epistemology? The important thing here being the extreme corner into which it tries to push the argument: we are not talking about all angles from which there might be grounds to use such a word, but that the question of the _existence_ of a referent for it is to be nothing more than a reflection of the epistemological means to assign _values_ to particular instances. I can think of cases where this was the right thing to do (getting rid of Newtonian time), but also cases where it amounts to insisting that the most restricted forms of evidence are the only ones to be admitted, and that much larger bodies of pattern that are not thoroughly analyzed are to be dismissed out of hand (historical linguistics in the old Germanic practice from before the age of probabilistic reasoning), which I think I can show were wrong. Perhaps because there is so much that I not only don’t know, but am poorly suited to being able to “get”, it is congenial to me to think that deciding what values something has, or even what something “is” as the referent for a word, can be very hard even if the value and the referent exist. More things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy, etc. > What are the practices you would engage in to test the belief of somebody. Can you imagine a test of some belief that would allow you to infer that I believe something even though my actions are inconsistent with that belief? Would that be rational on your part, or just evidence of your Christian good nature? Or your belief in a non-material mind? Not non-material. But at least one of the reasons to have a mind is to simulate many more actions than one can take. I guess I would say that concepts like belief refer to very materially instantiated patterns in those contexts of simulation. But again, that is a topic that has been raised and jousted over in hundreds of FRIAM pages by now, so I am not adding anything new to it here. Moriturus te saluto, Eric > > All the best, > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > Clark University > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Smith > Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2017 4:44 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Doxastic logic - Wikipedia > > Somehow I imagine that Nick means to say there are costly signals in this game — that motor action is thicker than conversation or reflection. > > If I am walking across a snowfield that I know to be filled with crevasses, and I know I can’t tell which snow holds weight and which doesn’t, my movement is really different than it is putting my feet on the floor beside the bed in the morning. > > To take a different example that is counterfactual but easier to use in invoking the real physiological paralysis, if Thank God Ledge on halfdome were not actually a solid ledge, but a fragile bridge, or if there had been a rockfall that left part of it missing and I were blindfolded, or if I were a prisoner of pirates blindfolded and made to walk the plank, my steps would land differently than they do when I get out of bed in the morning. > > There I didn’t say what anyone else would do in any circumstance, but did claim that my own motions have different regimes that are viscerally _very_ distinct. I’m not sure I can think about whether I would fight for air when being drowned. It might be atavistic and beyond anything I normally refer to as “thought”. I certainly have had people claim to me that that is the case. > > Those distinctions may occupy a different plane than the distinction between reasonableness and dogmatism all in the world of conversation and the social exchange. > > But I should not speak for others. Only for myself as a spectator. > > Eric > > > > >> On Sep 21, 2017, at 4:32 PM, gⅼеɳ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> No regrets or apology are needed. And even if we are about to "argue about words" ... I forget what famous dead white guy said that ... it's still useful to me. >> >> You say: "if one acts in the assurance that some fact is the case, one cannot be said to really doubt it" The answer is clarified by reading Marcus' post. If you act with assurance, then you're not open to changing your mind. So, you've simply moved the goal posts or passed the buck. >> >> I *never* act with assurance, as far as I can tell. Every thing I do seems plagued with doubt. I can force myself out of this state with some activities. Running more than 3 miles does it. Math sometimes does it. Beer does it. Etc. But for almost every other action, I do doubt it. So, I don't think we're having the discussion James and Peirce might have. I think we're talking about two different types of people, those with a tendency to believe their own beliefs and those who tend to disbelieve their own beliefs. >> >> Maybe it's because people who act with assurance are just smarter than people like me? I don't know. It's important in this modern world, what with our affirmation bubbles, fake news, and whatnot. What is it that makes people prefer to associate with people whose beliefs they share? What makes some people prefer the company of people different from them? Etc. >> >> >> On 09/21/2017 01:20 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: >>> I am afraid this discussion is about to dissolve into a quibble about the meaning of the words "doubt" and "belief", but let's take it one more round. In my use of the words ... and I think Peirce's ... one can entertain a doubt without "really" having one. Knowledge of perception tells us that every perceived "fact" is an inference subject to doubt and yet, if one acts in the assurance that some fact is the case, one cannot be said to really doubt it, can one? It follows, then, that to the extent that we act on our perceptions, we act without doubt on expectations that are doubtable. >>> >>> Eric Charles may be able to help me with this: there is some debate between William James and Peirce about whether the man, being chased by the bear who pauses at the edge of the chasm, and then leaps across it, doubted at the moment of leaping that he could make the jump. I think James says Yes and Peirce says No. If that is the argument we are having, then I am satisfied we have wrung everything we can out of it. >>> >>> Anyway. I regret being cranky, but I can't seem to stop. Is that another example of what we are talking about here? >> >> -- >> ☣ gⅼеɳ >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> 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 > 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 > 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
On 09/21/2017 08:27 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > */[NST==> Is there any logic in which, “Let X be Y; therefore X is Y” is not entailed. If a belief is defined as that upon which one is prepared to act, is there any logic in which acting does not imply belief? <==nst] /* Of course. E.g. modal logics allow different types of "therefore", say ⊨_a and ⊨_b. Then it might be true that "Let X be Y ⊨_a X is Y" but false that "Let X be Y ⊨_b X is Y". Similarly, I can imagine a logic where "be" and "is" mean different things. > On 09/21/2017 05:00 PM, gⅼеɳ ☣ wrote: > Yes, of course. E.g. Since most of my actions involve very tight feedback loops, something like tossing a ball to a friend can be launched and then I can make attempts to abort it if, say, I notice the friend has looked away. > > */[NST==>Wouldn’t the best way to analyze this be as a series of “micro” beliefs? <==nst] /* What is a "micro" belief? The whole point of my response was that you are over-simplifying both belief and action in order to tell a "just so story" and force the story to fit your philosophy. It seems reasonable to me that if actions are decomposable, then so would be beliefs because there's no difference between beliefs and actions. But you are saying something different. Somehow, to you, beliefs are different from actions. > */[NST==>I think a body can enact conflicting beliefs at the same time, but that is because I am comfortable with the idea that that the same body can simultaneously act on two different belief systems. CF Freud, slips of the tongue, hysteria, etc. Frank will correct me. /* You're implying that, although bodies are composite, belief systems are unitary. If the same body can do 2 conflicting things, why can't the same belief system be composed of 2 conflicting things? This is why I raised the idea of paraconsistent, defeasible, and higher order logics. Specifically _those_ types. Why do you treat belief systems as fundamentally different from physical systems? -- ␦glen? ============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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Re: Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
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In reply to this post by David Eric Smith
Eric writes:
"But at least one of the reasons to have a mind is to simulate many more actions than one can take. I guess I would say that concepts like belief refer to very materially instantiated patterns in those contexts of simulation. But again, that is a topic that has been raised and jousted over in hundreds of FRIAM pages by now, so I am not adding anything new to it here."
More than fifteen years ago, one of my colleagues roped me into teaching a complexity summer school where we were tasked to teach agent based modelling. Absolutely dreading this task, I instead wrote a quick simulation of such jousting -- the projection of personality down to a lower dimensional space. At that time, the tradition was a 2-d representation with time iteration, not a 1-d with time iteration. I think a model of this forum should at least have two dimensions, as the jousters will often be on oblique angles and miss one another, intentionally or not. In any case, this was _my_ idea and don't steal it! I will dig up the Java code to prove it!
Marcus From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Eric Smith <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2017 4:14:01 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Doxastic logic - Wikipedia Thanks Nick,
Yes, I understand the distinctions below. I am glad I opened with “Some how I imagine that…”, giving me enough wiggle room to have been wrong in the imagination to almost any degree. Small larding below, because I too have been under the gun to do something I don’t want to do, but there will be hell to pay for my stalling now. > As a behaviorist, I have to concede that it is possible to act tentatively. When I am meeting a dog for the first time, I extend the back of my hand into the danger zone near its muzzle, rather than putting out my hand confidently and stroking its neck, head, or flank. This allows the dog a chance to smell my hand and me a chance to gauge its intentions. Am I acting in doubt. I guess it depends on what the proposition is. If the proposition is that I am safe to reach out and pet the dog, I definitely doubt that. If the proposition is that no dog is safe to touch on the first meeting, then my tentative behavior affirms that belief. > > Peirce defined belief as that upon which we act and doubt as the absence of belief. It follows logically that anything we act on affirms some belief and, therefore, at the moment of action, extinguishes all contrary beliefs. If you follow me here, I may appear to win the argument, but only on sophistic points. I think I understand the alliance between the position you represent as Peirce’s, and behaviorism. With a lot of effort to stay in the discipline, and not slip back into reflecting my own intuitions, I could perhaps even mimic the kinds of arguments that this alliance makes. As you probably already know, I am comfortable enough working with even sometimes vaguely-understood terms that this position bothers me as bleaching language. If there were never a value-difference between what one was (or could have been) seen to do, and what was afterwards characterized as one’s beliefs at the time, then it is questionable whether there is any reason to have two words in the language. I imagine (again) that the adamant behaviorists would like to see the word “belief” expunged, though perhaps there is room in their lexicon to have to words that always take (as a matter of logic, or of construction) the same values, but which are allowed to carry different names because they are interfaces of those selfsame values to contexts or environments of different kinds. To me it seems more plausible that mental-state terms such as “belief” exist in the informal lexicon, as distinct from taken-action, not only because whatever our inner life is makes it appealing for us to use such terms, but also because there is an empirical, inter-subjectively available structure in tentativeness that the notion of beliefs as something with an independent existence from realized actions does a good job capturing. So not only are we inclined to use the word, but nature and discourse reinforce us to some extent in doing so. But at the same time as you probably know this is my preferred assumption, I read you as having energetically argued that it is invalid, against any number of opponents, so we let that stand. > Allow me to go for a KO. but that requires so little…. > When you are interacting with humans, how exactly DO you decide what they believe? If this were the only frame for such a question, would it not say that there is no referent for Ontology apart from a mirror of Epistemology? The important thing here being the extreme corner into which it tries to push the argument: we are not talking about all angles from which there might be grounds to use such a word, but that the question of the _existence_ of a referent for it is to be nothing more than a reflection of the epistemological means to assign _values_ to particular instances. I can think of cases where this was the right thing to do (getting rid of Newtonian time), but also cases where it amounts to insisting that the most restricted forms of evidence are the only ones to be admitted, and that much larger bodies of pattern that are not thoroughly analyzed are to be dismissed out of hand (historical linguistics in the old Germanic practice from before the age of probabilistic reasoning), which I think I can show were wrong. Perhaps because there is so much that I not only don’t know, but am poorly suited to being able to “get”, it is congenial to me to think that deciding what values something has, or even what something “is” as the referent for a word, can be very hard even if the value and the referent exist. More things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy, etc. > What are the practices you would engage in to test the belief of somebody. Can you imagine a test of some belief that would allow you to infer that I believe something even though my actions are inconsistent with that belief? Would that be rational on your part, or just evidence of your Christian good nature? Or your belief in a non-material mind? Not non-material. But at least one of the reasons to have a mind is to simulate many more actions than one can take. I guess I would say that concepts like belief refer to very materially instantiated patterns in those contexts of simulation. But again, that is a topic that has been raised and jousted over in hundreds of FRIAM pages by now, so I am not adding anything new to it here. Moriturus te saluto, Eric > > All the best, > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology > Clark University > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eric Smith > Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2017 4:44 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Doxastic logic - Wikipedia > > Somehow I imagine that Nick means to say there are costly signals in this game — that motor action is thicker than conversation or reflection. > > If I am walking across a snowfield that I know to be filled with crevasses, and I know I can’t tell which snow holds weight and which doesn’t, my movement is really different than it is putting my feet on the floor beside the bed in the morning. > > To take a different example that is counterfactual but easier to use in invoking the real physiological paralysis, if Thank God Ledge on halfdome were not actually a solid ledge, but a fragile bridge, or if there had been a rockfall that left part of it missing and I were blindfolded, or if I were a prisoner of pirates blindfolded and made to walk the plank, my steps would land differently than they do when I get out of bed in the morning. > > There I didn’t say what anyone else would do in any circumstance, but did claim that my own motions have different regimes that are viscerally _very_ distinct. I’m not sure I can think about whether I would fight for air when being drowned. It might be atavistic and beyond anything I normally refer to as “thought”. I certainly have had people claim to me that that is the case. > > Those distinctions may occupy a different plane than the distinction between reasonableness and dogmatism all in the world of conversation and the social exchange. > > But I should not speak for others. Only for myself as a spectator. > > Eric > > > > >> On Sep 21, 2017, at 4:32 PM, gⅼеɳ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> No regrets or apology are needed. And even if we are about to "argue about words" ... I forget what famous dead white guy said that ... it's still useful to me. >> >> You say: "if one acts in the assurance that some fact is the case, one cannot be said to really doubt it" The answer is clarified by reading Marcus' post. If you act with assurance, then you're not open to changing your mind. So, you've simply moved the goal posts or passed the buck. >> >> I *never* act with assurance, as far as I can tell. Every thing I do seems plagued with doubt. I can force myself out of this state with some activities. Running more than 3 miles does it. Math sometimes does it. Beer does it. Etc. But for almost every other action, I do doubt it. So, I don't think we're having the discussion James and Peirce might have. I think we're talking about two different types of people, those with a tendency to believe their own beliefs and those who tend to disbelieve their own beliefs. >> >> Maybe it's because people who act with assurance are just smarter than people like me? I don't know. It's important in this modern world, what with our affirmation bubbles, fake news, and whatnot. What is it that makes people prefer to associate with people whose beliefs they share? What makes some people prefer the company of people different from them? Etc. >> >> >> On 09/21/2017 01:20 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: >>> I am afraid this discussion is about to dissolve into a quibble about the meaning of the words "doubt" and "belief", but let's take it one more round. In my use of the words ... and I think Peirce's ... one can entertain a doubt without "really" having one. Knowledge of perception tells us that every perceived "fact" is an inference subject to doubt and yet, if one acts in the assurance that some fact is the case, one cannot be said to really doubt it, can one? It follows, then, that to the extent that we act on our perceptions, we act without doubt on expectations that are doubtable. >>> >>> Eric Charles may be able to help me with this: there is some debate between William James and Peirce about whether the man, being chased by the bear who pauses at the edge of the chasm, and then leaps across it, doubted at the moment of leaping that he could make the jump. I think James says Yes and Peirce says No. If that is the argument we are having, then I am satisfied we have wrung everything we can out of it. >>> >>> Anyway. I regret being cranky, but I can't seem to stop. Is that another example of what we are talking about here? >> >> -- >> ☣ gⅼеɳ >> >> ============================================================ >> 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 >> 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 > 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 > 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 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: Doxastic logic - Wikipedia
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Simulation, hmm. As I read a cover article in Nature several years ago, a study of tennis players established that their nervous systems implemented a Bayesian model of where the tennis ball was going in order to prepare for the possible return actions that might be necessary. This reminds me of the mythical martial artist who is quietly waiting for the adversary to commit to one branch of the ensemble of possible attacks. So when the actor believes in a probabilistic network of possible futures, updates those expectations according to each iota of evidence as it is received, and acts accordingly, is that belief or skepticism? -- rec -- On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 9:32 AM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ 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 FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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