Re: Direct conversation
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Glen,
Perhaps in my first response to this thread I should have distinguished clarity from verisimilitude. Let's imagine a situation in which my understanding of some situation .... say consciousness .... is vague. Do I sometimes advance the discussion more by advancing a more precise formulation than I actually can justify? On sober reflection, I guess I think the answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no and that a lot of wisdom is required to know what rule applies to a given discussion. I do believe the the power of a dialectic, in the intellectual energy that is generated when two clearly stated ideas contest over facts. But I also think that wonderful things can happen when a thinker truly and honestly describes his confusion. NIck Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([hidden email]) http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ > [Original Message] > From: glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> > Date: 6/23/2009 7:23:33 AM > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation > > Thus spake Steve Smith circa 06/22/2009 08:57 PM: > > glen e. p. ropella uttered/spake/emitted/gurgitated: > >> A mandated method to be clear as possible as much as possible would be > >> just as effective and efficient as a mandate to be as vague as possible > >> as much as possible. To be clear, I claim that neither conviction is > >> more effective or efficient than the other. Particular methods must be > >> chosen for the proper context. > >> > > I sympathize with your characterization of "_all_ communication as a > > generalized koan" but I am not sure I agree on your followup point. I'm > > not sure the two examples (clear as possible vs vague as possible) are > > reciprocal (complementary?). > > My point was not that the mandate to be vague is the inverse of the > mandate to be clear (though I think one could make that argument easily > enough). My point was that, when communicating, sometimes it is useful > to be clear and sometimes it is useful to be vague. > > What I was objecting to was Russ' _conviction_ to a single communication > mandate. I've found that it's counterproductive to commit oneself to a > sole approach to the world. It's like Russ' conviction to clarity is a > willful decision to always hold a hammer so that everything around him > looks like a nail. Single-minded convictions like that are always a red > flag for me. > > Of course I appreciate clarity and attempts to be clear. But I just > don't make it a fixed conviction. I'm open to all forms of > communication, including being vague when that seems most appropriate. > > If necessary, I can come up with some examples where being vague is a > better method for communicating ideas than attempting to be clear. But > I don't think it's necessary. I imagine everyone on this list can come > up with examples themselves. [grin] > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Nicholas Thompson emitted this, circa 09-06-23 10:42 AM:
> Perhaps in my first response to this thread I should have distinguished > clarity from verisimilitude. Let's imagine a situation in which my > understanding of some situation .... say consciousness .... is vague. Do I > sometimes advance the discussion more by advancing a more precise > formulation than I actually can justify? Obviously the answer to that is "yes", because you included "sometimes". [grin] Sometimes you progress the discussion by being overly precise and sometimes you regress the discussion by being overly precise. I think one immanent problem with modern science (immanent to modern science but not to science writ large) is the tendency to be unjustifiably precise. Such over-precision does a criminal amount of damage to our ability to lay out what we actually know from what we think we might know. The over-precision is done for many reasons, some of them altruistic and some nefarious. The climate change and abortion debates are examples with overly precise (arrogant) rhetoric on both sides of each. Now, I'm NOT a scientist; so what I say holds little water. But I think it's the obligation of scientists to _avoid_ being overly precise, even if they _posit_ that being overly precise will progress the discussion. And if/when they launch into an unjustified extrapolation, they should loudly, emphatically, and repetitively shout that they are speculating and have no reason to trust what they're saying. Similarly, they should be able to be just as precise about their ignorance as they should about their knowledge. If you don't capture your ignorance just as precisely as you capture your speculation, then you are an irresponsible speculator. ;-) > On sober reflection, I guess I think the answer is sometimes yes and > sometimes no and that a lot of wisdom is required to know what rule applies > to a given discussion. I do believe the the power of a dialectic, in the > intellectual energy that is generated when two clearly stated ideas contest > over facts. But I also think that wonderful things can happen when a > thinker truly and honestly describes his confusion. You set that up as a dichotomy and it's a false one. One can simultaneously be clear about one's ideas _and_ describe one's confusion about those ideas. But this is all just an aside. The real point is that there is no single method for approaching the truth. Often, the best method is an INDIRECT one, as with parallax, paradox, koans, etc. But often the best method is direct, as well. (To boot, we almost always end up equivocating on the word "best"!) So, I'd have the same criticism if someone fixated on the conviction that riddles are the only or best way to communicate. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Now that we've arrived safely in Canberra, here's my loose end.
A number of people have talked about 1st person vs 3rd person perspectives. What I'd like to know is what you all mean by a 3rd person perspective. And what I'd really like to know is why what you mean by a 3rd person perspective isn't the 1st person experience of that perspective. In other words, what does one mean by a perspective or view at all. If someone/something has a view, it's not important (for what I think we're talking about) what the view is viewing. What's important is that someone/something has that view. The viewer then has a 1st person perspective of whatever is being viewed. If what is being viewed has something to do with the viewer, that's neither here nor there. The more abstract way of saying this is that meaning occurs only in a first person context. Without meaning, all we have are bits, photons, ink on paper, etc. If you want to talk about meaning at all -- whether it's the meaning of a first or third person perspective -- one has already assumed that there is a first person that is understanding that meaning. Now since Nick and I seem to have reached an agreement about our positions, I'm not sure whether Nick will disagree with what I've just said. So, Nick, if you are in agreement, please don't take this as a challenge. In fact, whether or not you agree I think it would be interesting for others on the list to respond to this point. On the other hand, Nick I'm not asking you not to respond -- in agreement of disagreement. I'm always interested in what you have to say. -- Russ Abbott _____________________________________________ Professor, Computer Science California State University, Los Angeles Cell phone: 310-621-3805 o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/ On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Russ Abbott wrote:
> Now that we've arrived safely in Canberra, here's my loose end. Haloo down under! > > > The more abstract way of saying this is that meaning occurs only in a > first person context. Without meaning, all we have are bits, photons, > ink on paper, etc. If you want to talk about meaning at all -- whether > it's the meaning of a first or third person perspective -- one has > already assumed that there is a first person that is understanding > that meaning. This "complementary" way of describing seems to help (me at least) in resolving some distinctions between my own experience and the general shared intellectualization about these things. I have a *distinct* feeling of "being me" that I cannot shake by noticing that noticing my self (my body, my shifting ocular POV with my shifting motor activities) is very similar to noticing not-self (3rd person). The complement, ... noticing that noticing others (3rd person observation) is intrinsically the same as noticing myself goes down a lot easier and is roughly what I call "empathy". The former causes me to get caught up in the differences while the latter allows me to notice the similarities. Meaning seems hard to pin down without a receiver of meaning... perhaps this is part of what lead folks to want a God to be the infinite observer that not only gave all things their existence but also by elaboration, their meaning. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Russ Abbott
Russ,
Wow. A 100 percent phase shift doesn't seem to have slowed you up a bit.
Intentionality is [to me] an objective relation .... something I can see in the behavior of others. When an English robin treats a bit of red fluff on a brown wire as if it were another English robin, I would say that, from the point of view of one English robin, red-fluff-on-brown-wire IS another English robin. It's a pretty expansive notion of "point of view."
A point of view is "first person" only in the limited sense that it is indexed to a system. It is third person, in the sense that others may observe, discuss, etc., that point of view in operation.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
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Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Ah... you mean his "Gone AntiPodal Status"? 180 degrees out of phase... so roughly his tides have not changed by much, but his solar experiences have! I still resist (from a first person point of view) this. I can only "postulate" or "imaginate" or "accuse" another of a specific intentionality based on their actions. To me, everyone *but* me is a black box. I can poke, prod, electrocute, interrogate until the cows jump over the moon and come home wagging their tails behind them, and I *still* won't know their intentions. Read up on the contemporary wisdom about the utility of torture for extracting real intelligence as opposed to convenient confessions. On the other hand (incomplete discussions of the role of psychotherapy notwithstanding), I can say with significant certainty what my intentions are at any given time. Self-delusion is still a factor, and there *is* some asymmetry in the self/other around delusion. On one hand, it is easier to give others mis/disinformation about your intentions *because* all they have to observe are your actions, but it is also easier to delude yourself *because* sometimes you *want* to be deluded. The self can be the most motivated to believe one's own lies. All that back and forth, however, doesn't change the fact that *I* experience being myself differently than I experience observing others. It is also patently (from my personal experience... your mileage may vary) the case that I experience empathy (vividly imagining a situation from another's point of view) by *transferring* my own 1st person POV into my model of them... and imagining the experience of being them.
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Teleology of Symbol Grounding (was Re: Direct conversation)
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In reply to this post by Russ Abbott
Thus spake Russ Abbott circa 06/24/2009 01:05 AM:
> A number of people have talked about 1st person vs 3rd person perspectives. > What I'd like to know is what you all mean by a 3rd person perspective. And > what I'd really like to know is why what you mean by a 3rd person > perspective isn't the 1st person experience of that perspective. > > [...] > > The more abstract way of saying this is that meaning occurs only in a first > person context. Without meaning, all we have are bits, photons, ink on > paper, etc. If you want to talk about meaning at all -- whether it's the > meaning of a first or third person perspective -- one has already assumed > that there is a first person that is understanding that meaning. The 1st person assigns an intent or purpose to a context. The 3rd person simply refers to an attempt to talk about that context admitting ignorance about the purpose or intent. The 3rd person is a useful fiction (a.k.a. "model") where we talk about 1st person contexts ignoring the personhood of the person. However, that does NOT imply that meaning only occurs in a 1st person context. The term "mean" is ambiguous, with at least 2 meanings. ;-) Rewording your claim with one of those meanings of "mean", chosen to demonstrate my point, we get the following: all grounded symbols are teleological. And in that form, your claim is false. Weakly, any extant object _can_ be a symbol or stand-in for any other extant object. And when one object is a symbol for another object, that symbol is grounded. So, for example, the domino at the end of a line of dominoes is grounded by the nearest domino. We don't need a person with personhood to interpret the first domino. The grounding (meaning, standing-in-for-ness) exists in the world, objectively, by virtue of the laws of physics. Strongly, we can even go further and remember that there is no such thing as a pure syntax with no semantics. All formal systems are grounded in larger formal systems. So, ultimately, every symbol must be grounded, regardless of whether the symbol is "viewed" or not. Hence, grounding is objective, not subjective. Now, adopting the other meaning of the term "mean", what you _may_ be trying to say is that _interpretation_ of symbols (hermeneutics, semiotics) requires a person (personhood, intent, telos). And that's certainly true. The interpretation of symbols is subjective. And that requires the middle ground between the 1st and 3rd persons, the "transpersonal", by which I intend "(subjective) grounding shared by more than 1 person". Usage: Science is the effort to discover the objective grounding of all the symbols around us through transpersonal interpretation of those symbols. Usually, when people use the term "3rd person", they are talking about the convenient fiction described above. Sometimes, however, they are talking about the objective grounding of the symbols in that context, i.e. reality or truth, which is only approachable through transpersonal interpretation. That's my $0.02 anyway. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
My understanding is that the terms 1st and 3rd person arose as
ways of talking about literary styles - and our use of them is
metaphorical. An essential part of the metaphor is that authors writing
in 1st person are typically granted privileged license to write about
the mind of "I". In contrast, people writing in (a non-omniscient)
3rd person, are typically not granted as much license to write about
the minds. This is not entirely true, as people writing in 3rd person
write about minds all the time, but their writings are considered more
vulnerable to dispute. For example, if Obama wrote an account of his
inauguration and said "I was terrified", it would be considered less
vulnerable to dispute than if I wrote an account of his inauguration
and said "He was terrified". If these linguistic conventions become
reified then we can start taking the "I" not merely to denote the
speaker/viewer, but to denote an entity in possession of unique powers
that justify the privileges commonly granted to the linguistic device.
This is suggested as my understanding of the history, independent of
any value judgment regarding the reification.
There is a lurking problem, however, as these conventions do not always seem to hold in the real world. The most glairing probelm is that, at least sometimes, "I" can be wrong about my own mind and "He" can be right. (The cause of my error can range from simply not paying attention to what I am doing, to intentional self-delusion, to forgetting - think Alzheimer's.) For some, these problems lead to an urge to collapse categories, to see if the oddness cannot be gotten rid of if we leave behind the notion of uniqueness that goes with having distinct labels. I suppose that on some formal level, when a dichotomy collapses into a monism, it might not be particularly important which category label remains. However, one category may be preferred over another because it originally contained properties that the author wishes to retain as implicit or explicit in the monistic system that remains. These properties are ported along with word into the monistic system, because the term retains sway as a metaphor. In this case, the historical bias has been to retain only the "I" position. In this move, the "I" retains its unique insight about ourselves, and any insight we think we have about others must be treated purely as insight about ourselves, i.e. the mind that I know as "their mind" is really just a sub-part of my mind. This leads to extreme forms of idealism (where all the world exists merely as an idea), the two mind problem (is it ever possible for two minds to know the some object?), etc., etc. These were huge turn of the 20th century challenges for philosophy, having grown out of a tradition of pushing more and more extreme the distinguished lineage of ideas flowing from Descartes, Kant, Berkeley, etc. The problems, for the most part, remain. In the extreme form, at least, this lineage leads to a heavy intellectual paralysis, as it is not possible for any "I" to know any other "I", nor to know the "real world" (should such a thing even exist). The alternative (assuming we are to retain one of the original labels), is to have a bias for the "He" position. This leads to extreme forms of realism, and often (but not always) to behaviorism. In this move, the "I" has to get its information about the mind in the same that "He" has to get information. That is, if my brother knows my mind by observing my behavior, then I can only know my mind by observing my behavior. (Note, that the assertion about observing behavior is a secondary postulate, supplimenting the fundamental assertion that the method of knowing must be the same.) There are, presumably, things that the I-biased position handles well (I don't know what they are, but there must be some). I know there are things the He-biased position handles well. Among other things it allows us to better understand perfectly normal and mundane conversations such as: A) "You are angry" B) "No I'm not" A) "Yes you are dear. I've known you long enough to know when you're angry." B) "I think I'd know when I was angry" A) "You usually don't dear" ... several hours later B) "Wow, you were right, I was angry. I didn't realize it at the time. I'm sorry" The I-biased position understands these conversations as very elaborate shell games, where the first statement means something like: "The you that is in my head is currently being modeled by me as having a first-person experience of anger which is itself modeled after my unique first-person experience of anger". Worse, the last sentence seems (to me) totally incoherent from the I-biased position. The He-biased position much more simply believes that a person's anger is visible to himself and others if the right things are attended to, and hence the conversation requires no shell game. Person B simply comes to attend aspects of the situation that A was attending from the start. Now I will admit that the He-biased perspective has trouble in some situations, but those can't really be discussed until the position is at least understood in the situations it handles well. Eric On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 04:05 AM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote: Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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Thanks, Eric. My question had to do with the (f)act of knowing anything rather than what it is that is known. Your discussion has to do with knowing a mind and the 1st vs 3rd person perspective. What about simply knowing that the sun is out (assume it is) or that the sky is blue (assume you are under a cloudless blue sky). From your perspective do you see a 1st/3rd person perspective when the subject matter is not someone's mind?
-- Russ On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 11:57 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles
<BASE href="file://C:\Users\Rikus\Documents\My Stationery\">
Eric (and Nick),
I'm still pursuing clarity. Kindly
consider the following:
Can you please
comment:
1. I understand you to say that A
is an observer of A in much the same way as B and C. You're *not* saying A
is not having an experience of A, only that A's experience is not *privileged*
compared to B and C. Does that mean you consider A's experience to be
qualitatively indistinguishable from that of B and C, or only that the
difference in the quality of A's experience, compared to that of B and
C, is not of consequence?
2. Obvious A can think a great many things
that B and C can't know anything about. He can access memory about
himself that B and C cannot. He has access to interoceptive sensory
information that B and C does not. He has the experience of directly
influencing the mathematical symbols in his working memory, outside the
perception or direct influence of B and C. On the other hand, B and C has
access to some exteroceptive sensory information about A that A lacks. Do
you consider these various kinds of information and experiences to be entirely
interchangeable?
3. Do you distinguish between "experience"
and "have information about"? 4. When you say that A's point of view is
not privileged, do you consider anything beyond the ability to identify motives
and intent, gauge current emotional state, and identify habitual
patterns of behaviour?
5. We can extend the example and allow A to spontaneously start
hallucinating a swarm of hand-sized pterodactyls that are attacking him.
His body and mind responds to the perceived threat like it would to a real
one. In some sense he really is having the experience, yet, B and C would
deny that it is taking place. What exactly does it mean to be "wrong"
about one's own experience?
Regards,
Rikus
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Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles
Russ,
I wasnt invited to answer this one, but... isnt your question incomplete? Isnt knowledge always from a point of view?
"what about [you, me, he] knowing that the sun is out (assuming that it is)."
Professor Buttinski
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
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Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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In reply to this post by Rikus Combrinck
Rikus -
Nicely stirred. This is a very well articulated example of why I am confused/offended/confounded when people talk about someone else knowing my intentions (or experience) better than I do. In most cases, it would seem to be simply absurd. There are some cases where I am self-deluded, allowing myself to rationalize an explanation for my own feelings or behaviour which is not real, but rather conveniently fits some agenda or self-image I am trying to maintain. Once I have reached that level of sophistication in my self-delusion, I acquiesce to Nick's ideas/references about psychotherapy... I believe that trained professionals can be of help in untangling these tangles of self-misdirection and self-delusion. But for normal, everyday experience and perception... we can and do "know ourselves" quite well. Otherwise, I cannot imagine how anyone else would believe they understand my experience or feelings or intentions better than I do. And I mean this qualitatively... they simply cannot know any of it except through their own "model" of who they think I am and what they think my actions imply about that model. I believe that Nick's original position about our 1st person experience being qualitatively the same as our 3rd person experience excepting the specific POV we have (seeing/hearing/feeling through our own sensory apparatus) might reduce to saying that our own "self-knowledge" is *also* based on evaluating a "model" of ourselves in an identical fashion to the model we have of others, excepting that our evidence/data for our own model has the unique qualities of being situated from a specific point of view, being pervasive (we observe ourselves continuously but others only now and then), and by being informed directly by our own biochemical state (emotional) and only minimally (pheremones?) by others'. So... even if I accept Nick's hypothesis that our 1st person experience is essentially the same as our 3rd person except for POV.... I say the POV is high dimensional (6DOF geometry, direct access to our own sensory apparatus, biochemical, etc.). In the abstract, the differences might be considered to be "small" but in the real/practical/physical, these are huge differences yielding a qualitatively distinct difference between "self" and "other". Perhaps studies of infant development lead us to other beliefs (the observation of babies "discovering" their own hand belongs to their own will after seeing it enter and leave their field of view, etc.). Does someone have more background on this stage of development and it's presumed implications? - Steve <base href="file://C:%5CUsers%5CRikus%5CDocuments%5CMy%20Stationery%5C"> ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles
Dear Rikus, and all,
I think one of the hardest things about having been an academic is that while we are paid to have ideas, nobody else is paid to respond to them. And so, academic writing is like dropping coins down an infinitely deep wishing well and listening for any evidence at all that the coin ever dropped.
I think it is safe to say that NEVER in my 30 to 40 years of developing these ideas have they received as much careful attention as they have in the last two weeks. There is no greater kindness -- no rarer kindness -- a colleague can do for an academic. I am deeply in your collective debt. I am humbled by it, actually.
Rikus's questions are particularly well posed, and I will do my best with them below.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
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Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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That is why you should put lots of spin on them so they careen off of the walls all the way down...
What a melancholy-sweet thing to say. And here I thought you just felt like a Pinata! - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Needing more time to think through Rikus's excellent challenge, I'll try
to see if I can address Steve's concerns.
First, Steve's comments seem an perfectly good and coherent example of trying to collapse the dualism into an I-biased monism. The collapse is embodied in the conceit that "I" might merely be a model in my head, the same way "you" are a model in my head. Such a conceit places one only a hair-line away from crazy everything-that-exists-is-imagined idealism. That isn't necessarily bad, its just not my preferred brand of crazy. Second, I think any reasonable observation of human behavior shows that most people "know themselves" poorly, and that is a major rub. How often has someone told you something like "stop tapping your fingers!" and you said, "oh, I didn't even realize I was doing that". How often are you really aware, consciously, in that qualitative manner, of every obstacle you avoid when navigating through a crowded room. How often have you flinched away from an oncoming object before you really had any idea what it was? How often have you done something, then wondered "now why did I just do that"? If I prime you with pictures of Osama ben Laden on posters as you enter a room full of job applicants, you ("you" being a typical research participant) will rate the clearly Arab applicant lower than if not primed, and you (typically) will not remember the having seen the poster if I ask. Similarly, without priming, the typical participant can be shown to have quite a few biases they are not aware of (some of the experiments are quite ingenious). How often are you frustrated, but you don't really understand what you are frustrated about until sometime later? Have you ever found that you drove half-way to work while daydreaming and were surprised to find out where you were. How often are you surprised to find out how much a piece of news upset you? In those circumstances, has it ever been the case that the person delivering the news guessed your reaction level better? Have you ever thought you could handle more projects simultaneously than was really the case? Have you ever demonstrated how to do something and then not quite been able to explain what you did (cooking, sports, intuitive math)? ... ... ... Third, only a small part of not-knowing-yourself can possibly be of the highly intellectual intentional-self-delusion variety Steve is willing to concede. As is hopefully obvious from the above examples, most of it has to be of the non-intellectual varieties that includes not paying attention, not remembering, not caring, or not knowing what to make of the things you are doing . As we are currently being visited by elders, I have been sensitized to the variety made obvious by the question "What was I doing again?" Though most such events are initiated by the elders, I am increasingly sensitive to its frequency both for myself and other medium aged people around me. In most such cases, if a third party was watching, they can easy tell the confused person what they were in the middle of intending. If the normal usage of this language is to be taken seriously, the request in for someone else to tell me the state that my mind is (or was just) in. Fourth, no matter which bias you prefer, the 1st person perspective is potentially privileged in at least the following ways: You are around yourself more than I am. You can detect things about yourself that, while not in principle undetectable by me, I cannot typically detect in practice (internal temperature, a swelling bladder, etc.). At any given moment in time you have at least a slightly unique perspective on the happenings around you. -- Also, no matter which bias you prefer, there is no guarantee that the person with the 1st person perspective is taking advantage of said potential. Fifth, perhaps as a surprise, I full agree that the position I am advocating for is dreadfully confusing and frustrating. You attribute that to its being incoherent, or obviously wrong. I attribute the confusion and frustration to every one's having so much more practice and familiarity with other options. Regardless, I assert that the New Realist position is fully compatible with, and a fair representation of our natural use of language. Where it most clearly differs is in regards to typical explanations of our natural language. Did any of that help... or at least address the questions and concerns? Eric P.S. Alas, studies of infant development are unhelpful in this regards. The majority of researchers surely interpret their results along traditional lines, but in fact their evidence is not be the type capable of distinguishing between the two positions. Most infant liturature is very poorly conceived, and the really nice stuff is typically dealing with other issues. On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 12:12 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote: Rikus -Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
But I didn't want to exclude you either.
Whether it's from a point of view or not, the issue I was getting at is what does it mean to say that someone knows something -- and if you asked him would say that he feels reasonably confident about that knowledge. And I'm thinking primarily of knowledge derived from direct experience (like the sun being out or the color of the wall he is staring at), not knowlwedge based on having read something. But Rikus' example gets at the same sort of thing in a much more worked out way. So dealing with his questions would be good way to proceed.
-- Russ On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 12:03 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles
Hi Nick,
Your reply to Rikus didn't answer my questions.
You're right that I didn't mean knowledge in the sense of true belief. What I'm really talking about are qualia, but I didn't want to introduce that term. Besides, it's more than just qualia. And it's not just first vs. third person. It's that to speak of any perspective implies someone/something having that perspective, which seems to me to be first person for that person/thing. I don't see how one can get away from a first person perspective if one wants to talk about knowledge, belief, experience, perspective, or any other term that we use for abstracted experience.
I'm using the term "abstracted" to refer to virtually any version of experience that has been processed into a more abstract than the lowest level of physics such as photons, electrons, etc. Whatever is doing that processing has its own (unique) abstracted version of that experience.
-- Russ On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 12:45 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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In reply to this post by Eric Charles
Russ --
Perhaps the problem is that I don't understand what Qualia means. Here is the quote from
"The intrinsic phenomenal features of subjective consciousness, or sense data. Thus, qualia include what it is like to see green grass, to taste salt, to hear birds sing, to have a headache, to feel pain, etc. Providing an adequate account of qualia is sometimes held to be a difficult problem for functionalist explanations of mental states."
I just canNOT make sense of this passage. [NB, that behaviorism is sort of a school of functionalism]. Let's take seriously the Question, "What is it like to taste salt? " As I wrestle with it, I come up with two equally unsatisfying answers. "well, it's just .....salty!" Unsatisfying, because no new information added.
Or "It's like tasting sea water." Which is ok by me, but I am pretty sure wont satisfy you. Hans Wallach was a senior professor at Swarthmore when I came there to replace their behaviorist for a couple of years. Whenever he talked about qualia he talked about the "Nyuh" of an experience. "Nyuh" was always accompanied by forming a cone with the thumb and forefingers of one hand and twitchily inclining the hand toward one's audience. Ultimately, they had to let me go because I never could figure out what "Nyuh" was. I would have taken this on myself except the man I replaced never came back either. So, it wouldn't surprise me, Russ, if we could never agree on the "Nyuh". Perhaps I am "Nyuh blind."
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
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Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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Well, that's one reason I resisted talking about qualia. The point is that you can't explain what it's like to taste salt. So your first instinct, "well, it's just .....salty!" is the right answer for those of us who talk about qualia. So qualia are experiences about which one can't say much more than "Well it's just ... <whatever the experience is>" The question then is how do we understand/explain/talk about such phenomena from a scientific perspective.
When you way that you don't understand what Qualia mean are you saying that you have no idea what the term is trying to get at or that the defintion as written doesn't do a good job of conveying its meaning, which you more or less understand. If the former (that you have no idea what the term is trying to get at) would you also say that you don't know what feeling happy, sad, nauseous (again) mean? We've probably been over this too many times, but this seems to be one of the sticking points.
But if you ignore qualia, what about the rest of what I wrote, that no matter what perspective one is talking about, the simple abiltiy to have a perspective implies a first person? -- Russ
On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Thanks, Steve.
I like what you wrote, and I like Eric's
response, as well. I have many related thoughts popping up, but nothing to
add that is clear enough to be useful.
I do think the idea that one
maintains models of oneself and others is particularly significant and
hope to later return to it.
One more point about the discussion in
general, which I'll just slip in here if you don't mind -- it gradually
dawned on me that there are two different, insufficiently explicated contexts in
which our conversations are evolving, i.e. accuracy, verity and "realness"
of information about self and others, versus nature,
quality or texture of experience of self and others.
Regards,
Rikus
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