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Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

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Eric Charles-2

Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

Glen said:

In principle, if EricC's principle is taken seriously, the inner world of a black box device will be *completely* represented on its surface. Any information not exhibited by a black box's *behavior* will be lost/random.

David said:

Machine "behavior" is either a metaphor or an error of anthropomorphism. This is true, I believe, whether one speaks of a computer's UI (the computer is but a lump and sans any behavior) or a robot.

Both questions point out that as a field, psychology has never properly settled upon a definition of "behavior".

We can all agree that behavior refers to something more than mere movement, right? The dead body in Weekend at Bernie's is not behaving, despite tons of movement. A dead duck thrown out of a window isn't behaving as it falls to the ground, a live duck thrown out a window and flying away is behaving. A marionette under the control of a skillful artist might look like it is behaving, but as we widen the lens we see that the marionette is just moving, while the artist is behaving. Etc.

We can also agree that the difference between behavior and mere movement not a mere matter of constituent parts, right? The dead duck and the live duck are basically the same physically (so sayeth Dr. Manhattan). We can also all imagine that there might be other planets in which life looks very different, perhaps having silicon as its core atomic characteristic instead of carbon, for example, or using a physiological system without neurons.

So, we have a box. For some questions we might care what is inside the box. For other questions we don't. For the questions where we don't, we can treat it as a philosophical "black box" if we want. For those questions, we aren't asserting that the surface of the black box tells us what's inside it, we are merely asserting that for the purposes of those questions everything we want to know can be known from the surface.

Opening such a box can help you get a certain type of explanation for what was on the surface, but that is a different matter altogether. Any "inner-world of the black box" that creates the same surface has created the same surface. Dynamic systems are messy things, even when producing stable outcomes.

The characteristics that distinguish movement from behavior are visible without opening the box. We readily distinguish the dead duck from the live one without looking inside them; we distinguish the marionette from the artist by looking at more of the situation, not by cutting the marionette open. We certainly could come up with questions that lead us to look inside the marionette, but they wouldn't be questions about its behavior.

-----------

Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist

American University - Adjunct Instructor

[hidden email]

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jon zingale

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

Eric,

I love that you brought Weekend at Bernie's into the discussion,

wow, the 80's. I am not sure we must all agree that Bernie or

the dead duck or the marionette are just moving because we may

want to allow for transitions between domains of definition.

Of course, we can all agree if you wish to fix some domain.

Still, the live duck may be in a coma and opening the marionette

may be necessary to rule out a mechanism. Even as Bernie is

manipulated or as Tina fails to recognize Bernie as dead, his

body continues to behave. Perhaps even just his gut fauna.

Is it that we define behavior so that we can distinguish it from

just moving? I could be ok with that as a starting point.

Jonathan Zingale

thompnickson2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2

I like this Eric. Thank you.

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Tuesday, May 5, 2020 7:12 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

Glen said:

In principle, if EricC's principle is taken seriously, the inner world of a black box device will be *completely* represented on its surface. Any information not exhibited by a black box's *behavior* will be lost/random.

David said:

Machine "behavior" is either a metaphor or an error of anthropomorphism. This is true, I believe, whether one speaks of a computer's UI (the computer is but a lump and sans any behavior) or a robot.

Both questions point out that as a field, psychology has never properly settled upon a definition of "behavior".

-----------

Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist

American University - Adjunct Instructor

thompnickson2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by jon zingale

Hi Jon,

I predict that Eric is going to insist that behavior is necessarily at an instant. But carrying this principle out to its logical conclusion, I am not sure that being dead is not a behavior, or the limit of a behavior. Think for a moment about the baby rabbit that plays dead to escape the attentions of your cat. Playing dead is a behavior that spans time and includes becoming dead-like and seeming to come to life again. Let’s see what Eric actually says.

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Jon Zingale
Sent: Tuesday, May 5, 2020 9:21 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

Eric,

I love that you brought Weekend at Bernie's into the discussion,

wow, the 80's. I am not sure we must all agree that Bernie or

the dead duck or the marionette are just moving because we may

want to allow for transitions between domains of definition.

Of course, we can all agree if you wish to fix some domain.

Still, the live duck may be in a coma and opening the marionette

may be necessary to rule out a mechanism. Even as Bernie is

manipulated or as Tina fails to recognize Bernie as dead, his

body continues to behave. Perhaps even just his gut fauna.

Is it that we define behavior so that we can distinguish it from

just moving? I could be ok with that as a starting point.

Jonathan Zingale

gepr

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by jon zingale

While lying in bed this morning, waiting patiently for the alarm to go off, moving nothing but whatever autonomous functions are required to keep me alive, I *struggled* to find a biological example of behavior that doesn't involve movement. The best I could come up with was the change in color you see if you water a (clipped) flower with colored water (or a fresh clipping of celery).

This is also "movement", but of a clearly different scale, one we normally wouldn't call "movement". My analogous example was (as hinted by Marcus's suggestion that we put our cell phone next to some speakers or by my mention of TEMPEST) is an antenna. Antennas *behave* like inductors, an EM wave hits them and induces a current ... again, it's movement, but as Dave points out, not what we talk about in the context of dogs or ducks. Examples like EEGs don't inspire me because they imply a *purposeful*, intentional measurement device. The cell phone speaker and TEMPEST examples of movement are interesting because the former is annoying (unintentional consequences) and the latter is *adversarial*, with white, black, and red hats.

So, what distinguishes the still *alive* piece of celery in the food colored water versus the antenna reactively responding to EM waves in the air? These are all "behavior". But as EricS points out, that word isn't explanatory absent the entire lexicon/ontology it *tugs* at ... like gently pulling on one strand of a spider web and seeing the whole mesh deform.

On 5/5/20 8:20 PM, Jon Zingale wrote:
> Perhaps even /just/ his gut fauna.
> Is it that we define behavior so that we can distinguish it from
> /just/ moving? I could be ok with that as a starting point.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Eric Charles-2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, not explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.

For simplicity I will take a hypothetical, but strictly possible, case. A small water-animal has an eye-spot located on each side of its anterior end; each spot is connected by a nerve with a vibratory silium or fin on the opposite side of the posterior end; the thrust exerted by each fin is toward the rear. If, now, light strikes one eye, say the right, the left fin is set in motion and the animal's body is set rotating toward the right like a rowboat with one oar. This is all that one such reflex arc could do f or the animal. Since, however, there are now two, when the animal comes to be turned far enough toward the right so that some of the light strikes the second eye-spot (as will happen when the animal comes around facing the light), the second fin, on the right side, is set in motion, and the two together propel the animal forward in a straight line. The direction of this line will be that in which the animal lies when its two eyes receive equal amounts of light. In other words, by the combined operation of two reflexes the animal swims toward the light, while either reflex alone would only have set it spinning like a top. It now responds specifically in the direction of the light, whereas before it merely spun when lashed.
As thus described, this first dawn of behavior seems to present nothing so very novel... The animal, it is true, is still merely ' lashed' into swimming toward the light. Suppose, now, that it possesses a third reflex arc—a ' heat-spot' so connected with the same or other fins that when stimulated by a certain intensity of heat it initiates a nervous impulse which stops the forward propulsion. The animal is still * lashed,' but nevertheless no light can force it to swim " blindly to its death " by scalding. It has the rudiments of ' intelligence.' But so it had before. For as soon as two reflex arcs capacitate it mechanically to swim toward light, it was no longer exactly like a pinwheel: it could respond specifically toward at least one thing in its environment.
It is this objective reference of a process of release that is significant. The mere reflex does not refer to anything beyond itself: if it drives an organism in a certain direction, it is only as a rocket ignited at random shoots off in some direction, depending on how it happened to lie. But specific response is not merely in some random direction, it is toward an object, and if this object is moved, the responding organism changes its direction and still moves after it. And the objective reference is that the organism is moving with reference to some object or fact of the environment. In the pistol or the skyrocket the process released depends wholly on factors internal to the mechanism released; in the behaving organism the process depends partly on factors external to the mechanism. This is a difference of prime significance, for in the first case, if you wish to understand all about what the rocket is doing, you have only to look inside the rocket, at the powder exploding there, the size and shape of the compartment in which it is exploding, etc.; whereas, in order to understand what the organism is doing, you will just miss the essential point if you look inside the organism. For the organism, while a very interesting mechanism in itself, is one whose movements tum on objects outside of itself... and these external, and sometimes very distant, objects are as much constituents of the behavior process as is the organism which does the turning. ....
This thing, in its essential definition, is a course of action which the living body executes or is prepared to execute with regard to some object or some fact of its environment. From this form of statement it becomes clear, I think, that not only is this the very thing which we are generally most interested to discover about the lower animals— what they are doing or what they are going to do— but also that it is the most significant thing about human beings, ourselves not excepted. " Ye shall know them by their fruits," and not infrequently it is by one's own fruits that one comes to know oneself. It is true that the term ' wish' is rather calculated to emphasize the distinction between a course of action actually carried out and one that is only entertained ' in thought.' But this distinction is really secondary. The essential thing for both animal behavior and Freud's psychology is the course of action, the purpose with regard to environment, whether or not the action is overtly carried out. (Holt, 1915, p. 52-57)

P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

-----------

Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist

American University - Adjunct Instructor

[hidden email]

On Wed, May 6, 2020 at 9:01 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

While lying in bed this morning, waiting patiently for the alarm to go off, moving nothing but whatever autonomous functions are required to keep me alive, I *struggled* to find a biological example of behavior that doesn't involve movement. The best I could come up with was the change in color you see if you water a (clipped) flower with colored water (or a fresh clipping of celery).

This is also "movement", but of a clearly different scale, one we normally wouldn't call "movement". My analogous example was (as hinted by Marcus's suggestion that we put our cell phone next to some speakers or by my mention of TEMPEST) is an antenna. Antennas *behave* like inductors, an EM wave hits them and induces a current ... again, it's movement, but as Dave points out, not what we talk about in the context of dogs or ducks. Examples like EEGs don't inspire me because they imply a *purposeful*, intentional measurement device. The cell phone speaker and TEMPEST examples of movement are interesting because the former is annoying (unintentional consequences) and the latter is *adversarial*, with white, black, and red hats.

So, what distinguishes the still *alive* piece of celery in the food colored water versus the antenna reactively responding to EM waves in the air? These are all "behavior". But as EricS points out, that word isn't explanatory absent the entire lexicon/ontology it *tugs* at ... like gently pulling on one strand of a spider web and seeing the whole mesh deform.

On 5/5/20 8:20 PM, Jon Zingale wrote:
> Perhaps even /just/ his gut fauna.
> Is it that we define behavior so that we can distinguish it from
> /just/ moving? I could be ok with that as a starting point.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
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thompnickson2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

That’s great, Eric,

It’s creepy how much I owe to Holt, even tho I did not read him until 4 years into my career.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, May 9, 2020 7:17 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

For simplicity I will take a hypothetical, but strictly possible, case. A small water-animal has an eye-spot located on each side of its anterior end; each spot is connected by a nerve with a vibratory silium or fin on the opposite side of the posterior end; the thrust exerted by each fin is toward the rear. If, now, light strikes one eye, say the right, the left fin is set in motion and the animal's body is set rotating toward the right like a rowboat with one oar. This is all that one such reflex arc could do f or the animal. Since, however, there are now two, when the animal comes to be turned far enough toward the right so that some of the light strikes the second eye-spot (as will happen when the animal comes around facing the light), the second fin, on the right side, is set in motion, and the two together propel the animal forward in a straight line. The direction of this line will be that in which the animal lies when its two eyes receive equal amounts of light. In other words, by the combined operation of two reflexes the animal swims toward the light, while either reflex alone would only have set it spinning like a top. It now responds specifically in the direction of the light, whereas before it merely spun when lashed.
As thus described, this first dawn of behavior seems to present nothing so very novel... The animal, it is true, is still merely ' lashed' into swimming toward the light. Suppose, now, that it possesses a third reflex arc—a ' heat-spot' so connected with the same or other fins that when stimulated by a certain intensity of heat it initiates a nervous impulse which stops the forward propulsion. The animal is still * lashed,' but nevertheless no light can force it to swim " blindly to its death " by scalding. It has the rudiments of ' intelligence.' But so it had before. For as soon as two reflex arcs capacitate it mechanically to swim toward light, it was no longer exactly like a pinwheel: it could respond specifically toward at least one thing in its environment.
It is this objective reference of a process of release that is significant. The mere reflex does not refer to anything beyond itself: if it drives an organism in a certain direction, it is only as a rocket ignited at random shoots off in some direction, depending on how it happened to lie. But specific response is not merely in some random direction, it is toward an object, and if this object is moved, the responding organism changes its direction and still moves after it. And the objective reference is that the organism is moving with reference to some object or fact of the environment. In the pistol or the skyrocket the process released depends wholly on factors internal to the mechanism released; in the behaving organism the process depends partly on factors external to the mechanism. This is a difference of prime significance, for in the first case, if you wish to understand all about what the rocket is doing, you have only to look inside the rocket, at the powder exploding there, the size and shape of the compartment in which it is exploding, etc.; whereas, in order to understand what the organism is doing, you will just miss the essential point if you look inside the organism. For the organism, while a very interesting mechanism in itself, is one whose movements tum on objects outside of itself... and these external, and sometimes very distant, objects are as much constituents of the behavior process as is the organism which does the turning. ....
This thing, in its essential definition, is a course of action which the living body executes or is prepared to execute with regard to some object or some fact of its environment. From this form of statement it becomes clear, I think, that not only is this the very thing which we are generally most interested to discover about the lower animals— what they are doing or what they are going to do— but also that it is the most significant thing about human beings, ourselves not excepted. " Ye shall know them by their fruits," and not infrequently it is by one's own fruits that one comes to know oneself. It is true that the term ' wish' is rather calculated to emphasize the distinction between a course of action actually carried out and one that is only entertained ' in thought.' But this distinction is really secondary. The essential thing for both animal behavior and Freud's psychology is the course of action, the purpose with regard to environment, whether or not the action is overtly carried out. (Holt, 1915, p. 52-57)

-----------

Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist

American University - Adjunct Instructor

On Wed, May 6, 2020 at 9:01 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

While lying in bed this morning, waiting patiently for the alarm to go off, moving nothing but whatever autonomous functions are required to keep me alive, I *struggled* to find a biological example of behavior that doesn't involve movement. The best I could come up with was the change in color you see if you water a (clipped) flower with colored water (or a fresh clipping of celery).

This is also "movement", but of a clearly different scale, one we normally wouldn't call "movement". My analogous example was (as hinted by Marcus's suggestion that we put our cell phone next to some speakers or by my mention of TEMPEST) is an antenna. Antennas *behave* like inductors, an EM wave hits them and induces a current ... again, it's movement, but as Dave points out, not what we talk about in the context of dogs or ducks. Examples like EEGs don't inspire me because they imply a *purposeful*, intentional measurement device. The cell phone speaker and TEMPEST examples of movement are interesting because the former is annoying (unintentional consequences) and the latter is *adversarial*, with white, black, and red hats.

So, what distinguishes the still *alive* piece of celery in the food colored water versus the antenna reactively responding to EM waves in the air? These are all "behavior". But as EricS points out, that word isn't explanatory absent the entire lexicon/ontology it *tugs* at ... like gently pulling on one strand of a spider web and seeing the whole mesh deform.

On 5/5/20 8:20 PM, Jon Zingale wrote:
> Perhaps even /just/ his gut fauna.
> Is it that we define behavior so that we can distinguish it from
> /just/ moving? I could be ok with that as a starting point.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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thompnickson2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2

This idea that motivation and intentional terms are descriptive, not explanatory, comes and goes in the 20^th century:

Biologists for a while were prepared to say a turtle came ashore and laid its eggs , but refused to say that it came ashore to lay its eggs. These verbal scruples were intended as a rejection of teleology but were based on the mistaken view that the efficiency of final causes is necessarily implied the simple description of an end-directed mechanism ....The biologist's long-standing confusion would be more fully removed if all end-directed systems were described by some other term, like "telconomic ," in order to emphasize that the recognition and description of end-directedness does not carry a commitment lo Aristotelian teleology as an efficient causal principle. (Pittendrigh, 1958, pp. 393-394)

Similarly, from another of the new realists, Albert Hofstadter:

Let us therefore turn to that context in which we do identify actions as teleological and ask what those traits are. All of us in fact make such identifications in the context of social action. The politician and the prizefighter, the military strategist and the chess-player, the business man and the teacher--you cannot name a social actor who does not, in the pursuit of his calling, find it necessary to estimate the objectively purposeful character of others' actions in order to adjust himself thereto. There is, then, no initial difficulty in locating objective teleological processes in the rough. The problem is, what common traits do these actions exhibit? In particular, where in these actions do we find objectively purposeful character? And the answer is, we never find an objective purpose by itself, but always in association with a certain "sensitivity to conditions" and a fund of "operative techniques" possessed by the actor. To seek for objective purpose alone, without reference to these two factors, is to embark upon an impossible quest. A purposeful action is directed to its end always in a concrete set of circumstances and along paths of connection between antecedents and consequences. Differences between purposive actions rest not only upon differences of ends, but also upon the range and depth of the circumstances or conditions which enter effectively as well as upon the scope of the connections of antecedents and consequences actually operative. Hofstadter, 1941

These and many other examples are cited in this paper.

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

For simplicity I will take a hypothetical, but strictly possible, case. A small water-animal has an eye-spot located on each side of its anterior end; each spot is connected by a nerve with a vibratory silium or fin on the opposite side of the posterior end; the thrust exerted by each fin is toward the rear. If, now, light strikes one eye, say the right, the left fin is set in motion and the animal's body is set rotating toward the right like a rowboat with one oar. This is all that one such reflex arc could do f or the animal. Since, however, there are now two, when the animal comes to be turned far enough toward the right so that some of the light strikes the second eye-spot (as will happen when the animal comes around facing the light), the second fin, on the right side, is set in motion, and the two together propel the animal forward in a straight line. The direction of this line will be that in which the animal lies when its two eyes receive equal amounts of light. In other words, by the combined operation of two reflexes the animal swims toward the light, while either reflex alone would only have set it spinning like a top. It now responds specifically in the direction of the light, whereas before it merely spun when lashed.
As thus described, this first dawn of behavior seems to present nothing so very novel... The animal, it is true, is still merely ' lashed' into swimming toward the light. Suppose, now, that it possesses a third reflex arc—a ' heat-spot' so connected with the same or other fins that when stimulated by a certain intensity of heat it initiates a nervous impulse which stops the forward propulsion. The animal is still * lashed,' but nevertheless no light can force it to swim " blindly to its death " by scalding. It has the rudiments of ' intelligence.' But so it had before. For as soon as two reflex arcs capacitate it mechanically to swim toward light, it was no longer exactly like a pinwheel: it could respond specifically toward at least one thing in its environment.
It is this objective reference of a process of release that is significant. The mere reflex does not refer to anything beyond itself: if it drives an organism in a certain direction, it is only as a rocket ignited at random shoots off in some direction, depending on how it happened to lie. But specific response is not merely in some random direction, it is toward an object, and if this object is moved, the responding organism changes its direction and still moves after it. And the objective reference is that the organism is moving with reference to some object or fact of the environment. In the pistol or the skyrocket the process released depends wholly on factors internal to the mechanism released; in the behaving organism the process depends partly on factors external to the mechanism. This is a difference of prime significance, for in the first case, if you wish to understand all about what the rocket is doing, you have only to look inside the rocket, at the powder exploding there, the size and shape of the compartment in which it is exploding, etc.; whereas, in order to understand what the organism is doing, you will just miss the essential point if you look inside the organism. For the organism, while a very interesting mechanism in itself, is one whose movements tum on objects outside of itself... and these external, and sometimes very distant, objects are as much constituents of the behavior process as is the organism which does the turning. ....
This thing, in its essential definition, is a course of action which the living body executes or is prepared to execute with regard to some object or some fact of its environment. From this form of statement it becomes clear, I think, that not only is this the very thing which we are generally most interested to discover about the lower animals— what they are doing or what they are going to do— but also that it is the most significant thing about human beings, ourselves not excepted. " Ye shall know them by their fruits," and not infrequently it is by one's own fruits that one comes to know oneself. It is true that the term ' wish' is rather calculated to emphasize the distinction between a course of action actually carried out and one that is only entertained ' in thought.' But this distinction is really secondary. The essential thing for both animal behavior and Freud's psychology is the course of action, the purpose with regard to environment, whether or not the action is overtly carried out. (Holt, 1915, p. 52-57)

-----------

Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist

American University - Adjunct Instructor

On Wed, May 6, 2020 at 9:01 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

While lying in bed this morning, waiting patiently for the alarm to go off, moving nothing but whatever autonomous functions are required to keep me alive, I *struggled* to find a biological example of behavior that doesn't involve movement. The best I could come up with was the change in color you see if you water a (clipped) flower with colored water (or a fresh clipping of celery).

This is also "movement", but of a clearly different scale, one we normally wouldn't call "movement". My analogous example was (as hinted by Marcus's suggestion that we put our cell phone next to some speakers or by my mention of TEMPEST) is an antenna. Antennas *behave* like inductors, an EM wave hits them and induces a current ... again, it's movement, but as Dave points out, not what we talk about in the context of dogs or ducks. Examples like EEGs don't inspire me because they imply a *purposeful*, intentional measurement device. The cell phone speaker and TEMPEST examples of movement are interesting because the former is annoying (unintentional consequences) and the latter is *adversarial*, with white, black, and red hats.

So, what distinguishes the still *alive* piece of celery in the food colored water versus the antenna reactively responding to EM waves in the air? These are all "behavior". But as EricS points out, that word isn't explanatory absent the entire lexicon/ontology it *tugs* at ... like gently pulling on one strand of a spider web and seeing the whole mesh deform.

On 5/5/20 8:20 PM, Jon Zingale wrote:
> Perhaps even /just/ his gut fauna.
> Is it that we define behavior so that we can distinguish it from
> /just/ moving? I could be ok with that as a starting point.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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gepr

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2

Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.
> [...]
> P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

As I said to Nick approximately a dozen years ago, people who deny thought must not have it. I don't mean that as an insult. It's that for me thought is the one thing I can't deny because it's the first *experience*

At that point Nick dismisses me as a Cartesian.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 8:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.
> [...]
> P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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thompnickson2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by gepr

Ok. Glen. Please, what the dickens is an "internal" state? And, once I become aware of it, does it become external?

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2020 8:34 AM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made
> between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I
> would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately. [...] P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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thompnickson2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2

No, Frank. I would never dismiss a Cartesian. I am not sure I would hire one, either, but that’s another story.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2020 8:47 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

At that point Nick dismisses me as a Cartesian.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 8:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.
> [...]
> P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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Eric Charles-2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2

Frank,

So far as I can tell, no one is denying thought. I'm certainly not. There are phenomenon at play, and one of the things that happens when you science a phenomenon is that you end up with descriptions of the phenomenon (and explanations for the phenomenon) that don't match mundane intuitions about things,. We should expect that the science of psychology defines its subject matter different from mundane intuitions in the same way that the science of physics and the science of biology did for their respective subject matters: Sometimes those definitions end up pretty close to the mundane intuitions of a given era, other times you end up with definitions that are radically different.

In these contexts, I like to remind people how mindbogglingly unintuitive Newtonian momentum is. When was the last time you moved an object and it didn't come to rest? Aristotle's system is much more intuitive.

-----------

Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist

American University - Adjunct Instructor

[hidden email]

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 10:46 AM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

As I said to Nick approximately a dozen years ago, people who deny thought must not have it. I don't mean that as an insult. It's that for me thought is the one thing I can't deny because it's the first *experience*
At that point Nick dismisses me as a Cartesian.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 8:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.
> [...]
> P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
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Eric Charles-2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by gepr

Glen,

I offered the dead-duck vs the live-duck and Weekend at Bernie's as examples of movement that is not behavior. We can also talk about avalanches, the babbling brook, the explosion of the tree struck by lightening, the clouds blowing through the sky. The vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of movement that occurs in the universe in not behavior.

Also, I am exactly not talking about hidden states. We could talk about that at some point, for sure, but I wasn't talking about it before. I'm not sure what I might have said that lead you to think anything "hidden" was at issue. Certainly there are physically-internal states when we discuss organisms, but my exact point is that the phenomenon in question do not exist at that level of analysis. Back to Holt:

We are prone, even the ' behaviorists ' among us, to think of behavior as somehow consisting of reflex activities. Quite true, so far as it goes. So, too, coral reefs in the last analysis consist of positive and negative ions, but the biologist, geographer, or sea-captain would miss his point if he conceived them in any such terms. Yet we are doing the very same thing when we conceive the behavior of a man or animal in the unintegrated terms of neural process; which means, agreeably to the bead theory, the impinging of stimulus on sense-organ, the propagation of ionization waves along a fiber, their spread among various other fibers, their combining with other similar waves, and eventually causing the lowered or heightened tonus of muscle. AII this is happening. But our account has overlooked the most essential thing of all—the organization of these processes.

If now we pitch the misleading bead theory straight overboard, and put our microscope back into its case, we shall be free to look at our behaving organism (man, animal, or plant), and to propound the only pertinent, scientific question— What is this organism doing? All agree that empirical study will elicit the answer to this question, and in the end the complete answer.

What, then, is it doing? Well, the plant is being hit by the sun's rays and is turning its leaves until they all lie exactly at right angles to the direction of these rays: the stentor, having swum into a region of CO2, is backing off, turning on its axis, and striking out in a new direction: the hen has got a retinal image of a hawk and she is clucking to her brood—shoot the hawk or remove the brood and she stops clucking, for she is reacting to neither one nor the other, but to a situation in which both are involve... (Holt, 1915, p. 160-161)

-----------

Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist

American University - Adjunct Instructor

[hidden email]

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 10:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.
> [...]
> P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2

Eric,

Nick has said to me that "thought" is mentalist language and that I only think I think. Note the paradox. Surely you've heard him deny the existence of mental life and the private access that I (you) have to mine (yours). I think it happened here recently. No one but me knows the content of this message until i click "send" and they read it.

Frank

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 2:35 PM Eric Charles <[hidden email]> wrote:

Frank,
So far as I can tell, no one is denying thought. I'm certainly not. There are phenomenon at play, and one of the things that happens when you science a phenomenon is that you end up with descriptions of the phenomenon (and explanations for the phenomenon) that don't match mundane intuitions about things,. We should expect that the science of psychology defines its subject matter different from mundane intuitions in the same way that the science of physics and the science of biology did for their respective subject matters: Sometimes those definitions end up pretty close to the mundane intuitions of a given era, other times you end up with definitions that are radically different.

In these contexts, I like to remind people how mindbogglingly unintuitive Newtonian momentum is. When was the last time you moved an object and it didn't come to rest? Aristotle's system is much more intuitive.

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

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 10:46 AM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
As I said to Nick approximately a dozen years ago, people who deny thought must not have it. I don't mean that as an insult. It's that for me thought is the one thing I can't deny because it's the first *experience*
At that point Nick dismisses me as a Cartesian.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 8:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.
> [...]
> P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
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Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918

David Eric Smith

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

No one but me knows the content of this message until i click "send" and they read it.

I think you can argue that even this has two layers. There is a narrative “you” that knows the content of the message _after_ it has been typed out but before it has been sent. By then it is an artifact in the world, with which the narrative you interacts as it does with other artifacts. If you are on an irritating neo-microsoft Mac that constantly tries to replace the words you type, you could say that the Mac knows about the message in a similar way to the narrative you.

But there is also the event stream of converting an intended idea (whatever _that_ palr of words should mean!) into the composition of the particular message sequence. My experience of that is that the composition keeps unfolding into the view of the narrative you, from someplace that the narrative you doesn’t see, like a spring of which I see the surface pool but which is fed by a subterranean source. Presumably that language-production phenomenon is also associated with a concept of “you”, and I would not presume at all that it is coextensive with, or even of the same kind as, the narrative you that can proofread the sentence. Even the process of proofreading, to see whether the extant string really renders the intended idea or needs to have parts replaced by newly-conceived strings of words, almost seems like a collaborative exchange between two quasi-autonomous faculties.

Artists I talk to, and particularly writers for whom the unfolding of narrative is a high concern, very often emphasize this sense that there are two actors at work. Whether those two seem like one person, or like two in a dialogue, is a necker cube.

Eric

Frank

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 2:35 PM Eric Charles <[hidden email]> wrote:
Frank,
So far as I can tell, no one is denying thought. I'm certainly not. There are phenomenon at play, and one of the things that happens when you science a phenomenon is that you end up with descriptions of the phenomenon (and explanations for the phenomenon) that don't match mundane intuitions about things,. We should expect that the science of psychology defines its subject matter different from mundane intuitions in the same way that the science of physics and the science of biology did for their respective subject matters: Sometimes those definitions end up pretty close to the mundane intuitions of a given era, other times you end up with definitions that are radically different.

In these contexts, I like to remind people how mindbogglingly unintuitive Newtonian momentum is. When was the last time you moved an object and it didn't come to rest? Aristotle's system is much more intuitive.

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

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 10:46 AM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
As I said to Nick approximately a dozen years ago, people who deny thought must not have it. I don't mean that as an insult. It's that for me thought is the one thing I can't deny because it's the first *experience*
At that point Nick dismisses me as a Cartesian.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 8:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.
> [...]
> P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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--
Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
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505 670-9918
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Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

Eric

Your second paragraph seems exactly right to me.

By the way, I confirmed rather than wrote those last two words, thanks to Android or the Gmail client or something.

Frank

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 3:12 PM David Eric Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

No one but me knows the content of this message until i click "send" and they read it.

I think you can argue that even this has two layers. There is a narrative “you” that knows the content of the message _after_ it has been typed out but before it has been sent. By then it is an artifact in the world, with which the narrative you interacts as it does with other artifacts. If you are on an irritating neo-microsoft Mac that constantly tries to replace the words you type, you could say that the Mac knows about the message in a similar way to the narrative you.

But there is also the event stream of converting an intended idea (whatever _that_ palr of words should mean!) into the composition of the particular message sequence. My experience of that is that the composition keeps unfolding into the view of the narrative you, from someplace that the narrative you doesn’t see, like a spring of which I see the surface pool but which is fed by a subterranean source. Presumably that language-production phenomenon is also associated with a concept of “you”, and I would not presume at all that it is coextensive with, or even of the same kind as, the narrative you that can proofread the sentence. Even the process of proofreading, to see whether the extant string really renders the intended idea or needs to have parts replaced by newly-conceived strings of words, almost seems like a collaborative exchange between two quasi-autonomous faculties.

Artists I talk to, and particularly writers for whom the unfolding of narrative is a high concern, very often emphasize this sense that there are two actors at work. Whether those two seem like one person, or like two in a dialogue, is a necker cube.

Eric

Frank

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 2:35 PM Eric Charles <[hidden email]> wrote:
Frank,
So far as I can tell, no one is denying thought. I'm certainly not. There are phenomenon at play, and one of the things that happens when you science a phenomenon is that you end up with descriptions of the phenomenon (and explanations for the phenomenon) that don't match mundane intuitions about things,. We should expect that the science of psychology defines its subject matter different from mundane intuitions in the same way that the science of physics and the science of biology did for their respective subject matters: Sometimes those definitions end up pretty close to the mundane intuitions of a given era, other times you end up with definitions that are radically different.

In these contexts, I like to remind people how mindbogglingly unintuitive Newtonian momentum is. When was the last time you moved an object and it didn't come to rest? Aristotle's system is much more intuitive.

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

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 10:46 AM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
As I said to Nick approximately a dozen years ago, people who deny thought must not have it. I don't mean that as an insult. It's that for me thought is the one thing I can't deny because it's the first *experience*
At that point Nick dismisses me as a Cartesian.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 8:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.
> [...]
> P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
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--
Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
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Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by Eric Charles-2

Eric Charles,

As you read this recall that I have an MS in psychology so you can think of me as a disenchanted former psychologist.

You hint at something I have wondered about. Psychologists seem to have physics envy. They want to make wonderful counter-intuitive discoveries like the photon slit experiment, etc that seem incredible. But some (not I) claim that their findings are either obvious or incapable of replication. I took classes from Darryl Bem who could fascinate undergraduates with his self-perception ideas. He was also an amateur magician who was in his element when he was performing before an auditorium full of amazed people. Admittedly he explained how he did his illusions. He must have been expelled from the magicians union.

Frank

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 2:35 PM Eric Charles <[hidden email]> wrote:

Frank,
So far as I can tell, no one is denying thought. I'm certainly not. There are phenomenon at play, and one of the things that happens when you science a phenomenon is that you end up with descriptions of the phenomenon (and explanations for the phenomenon) that don't match mundane intuitions about things,. We should expect that the science of psychology defines its subject matter different from mundane intuitions in the same way that the science of physics and the science of biology did for their respective subject matters: Sometimes those definitions end up pretty close to the mundane intuitions of a given era, other times you end up with definitions that are radically different.

In these contexts, I like to remind people how mindbogglingly unintuitive Newtonian momentum is. When was the last time you moved an object and it didn't come to rest? Aristotle's system is much more intuitive.

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

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 10:46 AM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
As I said to Nick approximately a dozen years ago, people who deny thought must not have it. I don't mean that as an insult. It's that for me thought is the one thing I can't deny because it's the first *experience*
At that point Nick dismisses me as a Cartesian.

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

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 8:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.
> [...]
> P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
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Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
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thompnickson2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2

No, frank. Idon’t think that’s my position. If you want to make it as extreme as the position you lay out, it should be that I can think your thoughts as well as you can, not that you don’t have thoughts.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

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

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2020 2:45 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

Eric,

Frank

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 2:35 PM Eric Charles <[hidden email]> wrote:

Frank,
So far as I can tell, no one is denying thought. I'm certainly not. There are phenomenon at play, and one of the things that happens when you science a phenomenon is that you end up with descriptions of the phenomenon (and explanations for the phenomenon) that don't match mundane intuitions about things,. We should expect that the science of psychology defines its subject matter different from mundane intuitions in the same way that the science of physics and the science of biology did for their respective subject matters: Sometimes those definitions end up pretty close to the mundane intuitions of a given era, other times you end up with definitions that are radically different.

In these contexts, I like to remind people how mindbogglingly unintuitive Newtonian momentum is. When was the last time you moved an object and it didn't come to rest? Aristotle's system is much more intuitive.

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

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 10:46 AM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
As I said to Nick approximately a dozen years ago, people who deny thought must not have it. I don't mean that as an insult. It's that for me thought is the one thing I can't deny because it's the first *experience*
At that point Nick dismisses me as a Cartesian.
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 8:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.
> [...]
> P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

.-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ...
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

Nick,

I apologize for misstating your position. My fault.

Frank

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 4:07 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

No, frank. Idon’t think that’s my position. If you want to make it as extreme as the position you lay out, it should be that I can think your thoughts as well as you can, not that you don’t have thoughts.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2020 2:45 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

Eric,

Nick has said to me that "thought" is mentalist language and that I only think I think. Note the paradox. Surely you've heard him deny the existence of mental life and the private access that I (you) have to mine (yours). I think it happened here recently. No one but me knows the content of this message until i click "send" and they read it.

Frank

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 2:35 PM Eric Charles <[hidden email]> wrote:
Frank,
So far as I can tell, no one is denying thought. I'm certainly not. There are phenomenon at play, and one of the things that happens when you science a phenomenon is that you end up with descriptions of the phenomenon (and explanations for the phenomenon) that don't match mundane intuitions about things,. We should expect that the science of psychology defines its subject matter different from mundane intuitions in the same way that the science of physics and the science of biology did for their respective subject matters: Sometimes those definitions end up pretty close to the mundane intuitions of a given era, other times you end up with definitions that are radically different.

In these contexts, I like to remind people how mindbogglingly unintuitive Newtonian momentum is. When was the last time you moved an object and it didn't come to rest? Aristotle's system is much more intuitive.

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

On Sun, May 10, 2020 at 10:46 AM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
As I said to Nick approximately a dozen years ago, people who deny thought must not have it. I don't mean that as an insult. It's that for me thought is the one thing I can't deny because it's the first *experience*
At that point Nick dismisses me as a Cartesian.
---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, May 10, 2020, 8:34 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
Ha! Well, by ignoring the poignant example, you've ignored my entire point. And it's that point by which I can't agree with the unmoored distinction you're making. The celery example isn't about being alive. Sorry for injecting that into it. The celery example is about *scale*. Celery's movement *is* movement. An antenna's behavior *is* its movement. I introduced antennas' behavior in order to help demonstrate that behavior is orthogonal to life.

Now, the distinction you're making by saying that behavior is a proper subset of movement, would be fine *if* you identify some movement that is *not* behavior. I didn't see that in the Old Dead Guy text you quoted ... maybe I missed it? Anyway, that's the important category and celery and antennas fit right in.

But the behavior/movement discussion (including observer-ascribed intention) is a bit of a distraction. What we're actually talking about is *hidden* states (a.k.a. "thinking", maybe extrapolated to "consciousness"). So, the examples of light-following or higher order objective targeting is like trying to run before you can walk. Why do that? Why not talk about, say, the hidden states of an antenna? If we could characterize purely *passive* behavior/movement, we might be able to characterize *reactive* movement. And if we do that, then we can talk about the complicatedness (or complexity) of more general *transformations* from input to output. And then we might be able to talk about I⇔O maps whose internal state can (or can't) be estimated solely from their I&O.

We don't need all this philosophical rigmarole to talk about the complexity of I⇔O maps.

On 5/9/20 6:17 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok, so it sounds like we agree there is a distinction can be made between behavior and "mere movement". So what is that difference? I would argue, following E. B. Holt, that it is the presence of intentionality. Note crucially that the directedness of the behavior described below is descriptive, /not /explanatory. The intention is not a force behind the behavior, it is a property of the behavior-to-circumstance mapping that can be demonstrated by varying conditions appropriately.
> [...]
> P.S. I'm going to try to ignore the celery challenge, because while we recognize plants as living, we do not typically talk about them as behaving. And I think the broad issue of living vs. not-living is a different issue. We probably should talk about plants behaving a bit more than we normally do, but I think it is worth getting a handle on what we mean in the more normal seeming cases before we try to look for implications like those.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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--
Frank Wimberly
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Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918

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