Re: Friam Digest, Vol 72, Issue 26

[James R. Stalker, PHD [RESPR]]

All,

I sent this comment, see below, yesterday and it apparently got  
bounced.  Hope it helps a bit.

JRS

--

Hi All,

I couldn't help notice these recent email exchanges between Nick and  
several others and wanted to offer a comment.

If you all are just having fun through these exchanges of emails,  
please ignore my comment.  Otherwise, here is my take on it.

People may seem to be able to bring multiply cogent arguments about a  
subject or a point, where all those arguing may be making sense to  
different groups of individuals.  Why is that?  It is all about the  
definition of the subject or the point being argued.  In the absense  
of clearly understood definitions (such situations do occur amply),  
people can only try to shoot a moving target and most likely fail.

Even if a clear definition can be created (much easier said than  
done), people, with their own subjective thoughts, will not descern  
the subtle deviations from that definition to judge whether or not a  
specific argument is incorrect relative to that definition.  It takes  
people that can be extremely objective in order to understand such  
subjects or points clearly.

**I strongly recommend we spend a heck of a lot more time in defining  
sharper definitions than in arguing about things that are inadequately  
defined.**

I hope my comment is not considered a negative criticism nor an insult  
by any of you involved in these email exchanges.  I know Nick well  
enough that he won't.

Best regards,

James


Quoting [hidden email]:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. vol 72, issue 25 response (peggy miller)
>    2. Re: Nick and dishonest behavior (Russ Abbott)
>    3. Was human nature, now EvoDevo (Nicholas Thompson)
>    4. Moral Naturalism (duplicate of RE "nick" etc.) (Nicholas Thompson)
>    5. Re: Nick and dishonest behavior (ERIC P. CHARLES)
>    6. Re: Behaviorist Federal Judge (Nicholas Thompson)
>    7. Re: Was human nature, now EvoDevo (Russ Abbott)
>    8. Re: Behaviorist Federal Judge (Russ Abbott)
>    9. Re: Moral Naturalism (duplicate of RE "nick" etc.) (Russ Abbott)
>   10. Re: Was human nature, now EvoDevo (Steve Smith)
>   11. Re: Nick and dishonest behavior (Steve Smith)
>   12. A great story about forgetting what's real (Russ Abbott)
>   13. Re: Behaviorist Federal Judge (Nicholas Thompson)
>   14. Re: Was human nature, now EvoDevo (Nicholas Thompson)
>   15. Re: Nick and dishonest behavior (Nicholas Thompson)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:40:52 -0600
> From: peggy miller <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] vol 72, issue 25 response
> To: [hidden email]
> Message-ID:
> <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I only wish to say that I disagree with the statement that "ethical behavior
> is built on human nature". It is the "human nature" part that I take issue
> with. I believe each person's sense of ethics comes from a combination of
> education/experiences, social network, physiological chemistry of that
> person, IQ, and genetic makeup. That combination causes a person to form a
> construct of ethics they rely on to defend their behavior. The only other
> part that throws a crux into their formula is the level of spiritual
> connection they have to the greater universe, and I am not yet unconvinced
> that that particular level of connection may also be a genetic thing.
>
> thanks for listening.
> Have a good day!
>
> Peggy Miller
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:49:29 -0700
> From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
> To: [hidden email], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID:
> <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Nick,
>
> I'm still curious about your answer to a challenge you raised.  You wrote,
>
> As one of my graduate students used to [cheerfully] say, "but Nick, if
> youdon't have an inner life, it's ok to
> kill you, right?"
>
> Now, my wisest response to this line of argument would be to go all
> technocratic and to deny that I have any ethical  dog in this fight at
> all.   One can, after all, be a moral naturalist and assert that reasoning
> and argument only come into play when people are trying to violate their
> ethical impulses and that, on the whole, people are designed by nature so
> that they don't kill each other.  Just as I don't think it makes any
> difference whether you believe in evolution or creation whether you are a
> good person, I don't think it makes any difference to being a good person
> whether you believe  others have an inner life or not.  Thus, I escape the
> argument by asserting that it has no MORAL consequences.  I reassure Russ
> that my absence of an inner life does not make me dangerous, and, once he
> takes that reassurance seriously, he doesn't have to kill me.  Peace is
> re-established.
>
> It seems to m that you didn't answer your graduate student's challenge. Is
> it ok to kill you?
>
> The implication of the challenge is that murder is a moral issue only when
> it is performed on a being with an inner life. Simply terminating the
> functioning of something (like a robot) is not murder. We use the term
> "murder" when the thing murdered is understood to have an inner life like
> our own.
>
> It may be as you say that we have evolved to have that perspective. (I think
> that's correct.) But so what?  Do you have any (moral) grounds for objecting
> to your graduate student killing you?  Given your statement "it has no MORAL
> consequences" apparently your answer is that from your perspective there is
> no moral reason for him/her not to kill you. Is that correct?
>
> -- Russ
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 6:47 AM, Nicholas Thompson <
> [hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> I have long felt that the Santa Fe group should find a way to gnash
>> families.
>>
>> Let's do it.
>>
>> N
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
>> Clark University ([hidden email])
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > [Original Message]
>> > From: Steve Smith <[hidden email]>
>> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> [hidden email]>
>> > Date: 6/19/2009 11:11:50 PM
>> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
>> >
>> > Douglas Roberts wrote:
>> > > Well, that certainly cleared things up!
>> > And the most fascinating thing (for the benefit for those who know
>> > neither I nor Doug personally) is that this was a wonderful illumination
>> > for me.  Nothing conclusive, but nicely expansive (for me)...
>> >
>> > I think it is time for Doug and I (and our spouses) to break bread,
>> > share libations, and maybe even some fresh-roast, fresh ground coffee
>> > late into the night! ( I love/hate being a wide-awake drunk for 2 days
>> > straight thanks to Doug's killer Scotch followed by excellent
>> > Fresh-Fresh-Fresh Espresso)
>> >
>> >
>> > - 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
>>
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> 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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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:50:41 -0600
> From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] Was human nature, now EvoDevo
> To: [hidden email]
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Sorry.  Misspoke.  Don't really make a distinction between human  
> nature and the human condition.  Each is a creation of the other.    
> they are dialectically intertwined.... or whatever.  So, you cant  
> disagree with me on that point any more.
>
> So, let's take this occasion to transition to a different topic ...  
> development.  I have been Sean Carroll's Endless Forms most  
> Beautiful.  It is the forth book I have read written by a brilliant  
> author designed to explain modern "EvoDevo" to the great unwashed.    
> And I have to say, I still don't quite "get it"  But I think I am  
> beginning to understand why ... the metaphors they use are bad.    
> Nobody has come up with a good metaphor to come up with how we now  
> know development to work.  How do we get pluris e uno?
>
> The stunning discovery of the last 25 years is how widely and in  
> what detail sequences of genes are similar among animals of widely  
> different form.  The metaphor they use is of a genetic tool kit.    
> Even tho organisms have many different genes, they all share an  
> essential toolkit.  Carroll actually depicts a little toolbox with  
> cubbies  in for the "tools".  The DNA sequences in this basic,  
> shared tool kit are often similar down to the last base.  So even  
> though planaria, bees, octopi, and humans have wildly different  
> eyes, the making of eyes in all of these species is dependent upon a  
>  shared sequence of genes that generate a shared bunch of proteins.
>
> But the tool kit metaphor leads Carroll into a ghastly  
> anthropomorphic trap.  Once we have tools, we need a craftsman,  
> right?  Well, in Carroll's hand, the tools themselves become the  
> craftsmen.   So, in caption of a photography showing the embryonic  
> development of a frog's "hand" we get the following:   "The BMP4  
> tool kit a gene marks the tissue between the digits that will die."  
>  In general, reading the text, one is seduced into a vision of the  
> genes or the proteins crawling over the embryo, measuring it out for  
>  this and that, and leaving stakes in the ground so that the  
> different contractors that are coming along will know what to put  
> where.
>
> Now, don't get me wrong.  I think Carroll's book is stupendous, and  
> I would urge you all to drop what you are doing and order it on  
> Amazon today.  Buy this "toolkit" thing  has to be wrong.  What is  
> really going on is that fundamental physical asymmetries in the ovum  
>  are serving as cues that excite portions of embryo  to produce one  
> or more of these "tookkit" proteins, which then defuse ac cross the  
> embryo.   Then the concentration gradients of these proteins, in  
> turn, serve as the cues for the production of proteins that further  
> organize the portions of the embryo for further functions.
>
> So, assuming that I have this correctly, what would be  GOOD  
> metaphor to encapsulate this process?  Remember, we have stipulated  
> here repeatedly that all metaphors are faulted and that a GOOD  
> metaphor is one whose faults do not encourage defunct notions of  
> what is going on.  So, for instance, in matters of development, a  
> GOOD metaphor should scrupulously avoid any implication of  
> intelligence in its description of what these "organizing" proteins  
> are doing.
>
> Does any one have a better metaphor?
>
> If any of you are wondering why I am so verbose and wondering,  
> further, when it will stop, try sending some decent weather to  
> Massachusetts.
> Eleventh straight day of rain.
>
> N
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: peggy miller
> To: [hidden email]
> Sent: 6/21/2009 11:42:22 AM
> Subject: [FRIAM] vol 72, issue 25 response
>
>
> I only wish to say that I disagree with the statement that "ethical  
> behavior is built on human nature". It is the "human nature" part  
> that I take issue with. I believe each person's sense of ethics  
> comes from a combination of education/experiences, social network,  
> physiological chemistry of that person, IQ, and genetic makeup. That  
>  combination causes a person to form a construct of ethics they rely  
>  on to defend their behavior. The only other part that throws a crux  
>  into their formula is the level of spiritual connection they have  
> to  the greater universe, and I am not yet unconvinced that that  
> particular level of connection may also be a genetic thing.
>
> thanks for listening.
> Have a good day!
>
> Peggy Miller
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:40:51 -0600
> From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] Moral Naturalism (duplicate of RE "nick" etc.)
> To: [hidden email]
> Cc: [hidden email]
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Russ,
>
>  It's not OK, but only because my relatives and friends would kill  
> your relatives and friends if you did.  Or, to put the matter more  
> precisely, people who kill other people tend, when social  
> environments are stable, to have had fewer offspring than those that  
>  don't.   Ditto Rapists.  Whenever  social environments were  
> unstable  (See Death, Hope, and Sex by Jim Chisholm) rapists and  
> murders did  better, so alot of human cognitive and social  
> developmental  apparatus is devoted to figuring out what sort of a  
> situation each  individual is in.
>
> See  the  review at http://www.behavior.org/journals_bp/2001/amin.pdf.
>
> this is the duplicate of a message I sent to the FRIAM list with the  
>  (much too large) file attached.  Apologies to the list manager who  
> should feel free to kill the version with the attachment.
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:13:07 -0400
> From: "ERIC P. CHARLES" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Bringing something from a P.S. up to the front:
>
> Nick's ethical
> stance would
> be based on treating things that act in certain ways as equal to all other
> things that act in certain ways, and it wouldn't get much more prescriptive
> than that. The
> acts he would be interested in would be very sophisticated actions, or
> combination of actions - such as "contributing to the conversation". This may
> seem strange, but again, it is
> really, really, really, not that different from a stance that treats  
>  all things
> that "experience in a certain way" as equal.
>
> ----
>
> To elaborate that, it cannot be the case, pragmatically speaking, that we let
> other people live because they have an inner life. We all know this cannot be
> true (Russ included), because one of the axiomatic assumptions for these
> conversations is that you cannot directly know someone else's mental life. If
> you cannot know whether or not someone has a mental life, you can't decide
> whether or not you can kill them based on their having a mental  
> life. Is there
> any way to make that more obvious?!?
>
> The way this is problem is normally dealt with is for people to say  
> that we can
> gain insight into people's mental lives by observing their behavior.  
>  The logic
> goes 1) we see people act a certain way, 2) we infer that they have a mental
> life, 3) we decide that we cannot kill them (barring them being jerks or
> believing in the wrong god). Now, the irony of a dualistic philosophy is in
> step 2, where their inner life somehow comes to be entirely in our heads, not
> in theirs! Its crazy talk. Philosophers have spent millennia trying  
> to connect
> steps 2 and 3, and getting no where. Much better to just look at the part of
> the equation that is actually observable, steps 1 and 3 - the  
> relation between
> the actions and the ethical decision. When you do that, you see that  
>  we aren't
> allowed to kill people who act in certain ways. That's what its always been,
> despite all the smoke and mirrors created by point 2. The obvious,  
> but totally
> unasked, empirical question is "What are the ways that people act that
> distinguish whether or not we can kill them." We just don't need to  
> talk about
> inner lives at all to have that conversation. We just don't!  The  
> same applies
> to all sub-categories of interest. We judge someone a "murder" based on some
> aspect of their actions and the circumstances within which the actions took
> place. Period. It cannot be that we judge them a murder based on their
> inner-mind.
>
> Thus, while Nick's position does have something to say about the  
> form of rules
> in moral systems (i.e., that they relate behavior to consequences),  
> it does not
> have implications for what the content of the rules should be. In that sense,
> it IS morally neutral. Whether or not people have inner-lives has  
> never, at any
> point, effected ethics in practice. Certainly Nick could elaborate his own
> moral views, by suggesting some rules, but that is completely tangential to
> this point.
>
> This may seem terribly abstract, but it is not to be taken lightly. Judge
> Posner (appellate judge for the Federal 7th Circuit) has an  
> excellent book, and
> quite a lot of legal precedence arguing that talk of an inner mental  
>  life adds
> nothing to law, and in fact seriously detracts from it. Here are two quotes
> from him:
>
> "Obviously most adults and older children can and do speak without  
> vocalization
> (that is, can "conceal their thoughts") and form mental images. But this
> barebones concept of mind, which essentially equates mind to  
> consciousness, is
> different from the idea that there is a something, the "mind", which is the
> locus of intentions, the invisible puppeteer, the inner man or woman. It is
> that idea which may have no consequences for law and should perhaps be
> discarded, despite the law's emphatic... commitment to it."
>
> "Our understanding of the mind may improve - maybe we will learn to  
> read minds.
> But maybe there is nothing to read, or maybe we are not interested  
> in what the
> murderer was thinking when he pulled the trigger. If we take seriously the
> actor's adage that no man is a villain in his own eyes, we can  
> expect to find,
> if we ever succeed in peering into the murderer's mind, an elaborate, perhaps
> quite plausible, rationalization for his deed. But so what? We would  
>  punish him
> all the same."
>
> Eric
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 01:49 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Nick,
>>
>> I'm still curious about your answer to a challenge you raised.  You wrote,
>>
>>
>
>
>> As one of my graduate students used to [cheerfully] say, "but Nick, if you
> don't have an inner life, it's ok to kill you, right?"
>
>
>>
>>
>>
> Now, my wisest response to this
> line of argument would be to go all technocratic and to deny that I
> have any ethical  dog in this fight at all.   One can, after all, be a
> moral naturalist and assert that reasoning and argument only come into
> play when people are trying to violate their ethical impulses and that,
> on the whole, people are designed by nature so that they don't kill  
> each other.
>  Just as I don't think it makes any difference whether you believe  
> in evolution
> or creation whether you are a good person, I don't think it makes any
> difference to being a good person whether you
> believe  others have an inner life or not.  Thus, I escape the argument
> by asserting that it has no MORAL consequences.  I reassure Russ  that
> my absence of an inner life does not make me dangerous, and, once he
> takes that reassurance seriously, he doesn't have to kill me.  Peace is
> re-established.
>>
>
>
>> It seems to m that you didn't answer your graduate student's  
>> challenge. Is it
> ok to kill you?
>>
>> The implication of the challenge is that murder is a moral issue  
>> only when it
> is performed on a being with an inner life. Simply terminating the  
> functioning
> of something (like a robot) is not murder. We use the term "murder" when the
> thing murdered is understood to have an inner life like our own.
>>
>> It may be as you say that we have evolved to have that perspective. (I think
> that's correct.) But so what?  Do you have any (moral) grounds for  
> objecting to
> your graduate student killing you?  Given your statement "it has no MORAL
> consequences" apparently your answer is that from your perspective  
> there is no
> moral reason for him/her not to kill you. Is that correct?
>>
>
>
>> -- Russ
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:56:15 -0600
> From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Behaviorist Federal Judge
> To: "friam" <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Wow!  I never thought I would see the like of it!
>
> [I changed the subject line;  even an exhibitionist has his limits.]
>
> n
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: ERIC P. CHARLES
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Sent: 6/21/2009 2:14:29 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
>
>
> Bringing something from a P.S. up to the front:
>
> Nick's ethical stance would be based on treating things that act in  
> certain ways as equal to all other things that act in certain ways,  
> and it wouldn't get much more prescriptive than that. The acts he  
> would be interested in would be very sophisticated actions, or  
> combination of actions - such as "contributing to the conversation".  
>  This may seem strange, but again, it is really, really, really, not  
>  that different from a stance that treats all things that  
> "experience  in a certain way" as equal.
>
> ----
>
> To elaborate that, it cannot be the case, pragmatically speaking,  
> that we let other people live because they have an inner life. We  
> all know this cannot be true (Russ included), because one of the  
> axiomatic assumptions for these conversations is that you cannot  
> directly know someone else's mental life. If you cannot know whether  
>  or not someone has a mental life, you can't decide whether or not  
> you can kill them based on their having a mental life. Is there any  
> way to make that more obvious?!?
>
> The way this is problem is normally dealt with is for people to say  
> that we can gain insight into people's mental lives by observing  
> their behavior. The logic goes 1) we see people act a certain way,  
> 2) we infer that they have a mental life, 3) we decide that we  
> cannot kill them (barring them being jerks or believing in the wrong  
>  god). Now, the irony of a dualistic philosophy is in step 2, where  
> their inner life somehow comes to be entirely in our heads, not in  
> theirs! Its crazy talk. Philosophers have spent millennia trying to  
> connect steps 2 and 3, and getting no where. Much better to just  
> look at the part of the equation that is actually observable, steps  
> 1 and 3 - the relation between the actions and the ethical decision.  
>  When you do that, you see that we aren't allowed to kill people who  
>  act in certain ways. That's what its always been, despite all the  
> smoke and mirrors created by point 2. The obvious, but totally  
> unasked, empirical question is "What are the ways that people act  
> that distinguish whether or not we can kill them." We just don't  
> need to talk about inner lives at all to have that conversation. We  
> just don't!  The same applies to all sub-categories of interest. We  
> judge someone a "murder" based on some aspect of their actions and  
> the circumstances within which the actions took place. Period. It  
> cannot be that we judge them a murder based on their inner-mind.
>
> Thus, while Nick's position does have something to say about the  
> form of rules in moral systems (i.e., that they relate behavior to  
> consequences), it does not have implications for what the content of  
>  the rules should be. In that sense, it IS morally neutral. Whether  
> or not people have inner-lives has never, at any point, effected  
> ethics in practice. Certainly Nick could elaborate his own moral  
> views, by suggesting some rules, but that is completely tangential  
> to this point.
>
> This may seem terribly abstract, but it is not to be taken lightly.  
> Judge Posner (appellate judge for the Federal 7th Circuit) has an  
> excellent book, and quite a lot of legal precedence arguing that  
> talk of an inner mental life adds nothing to law, and in fact  
> seriously detracts from it. Here are two quotes from him:
>
> "Obviously most adults and older children can and do speak without  
> vocalization (that is, can "conceal their thoughts") and form mental  
>  images. But this barebones concept of mind, which essentially  
> equates mind to consciousness, is different from the idea that there  
>  is a something, the "mind", which is the locus of intentions, the  
> invisible puppeteer, the inner man or woman. It is that idea which  
> may have no consequences for law and shou! ld perhaps be discarded,  
> despite the law's emphatic... commitment to it."
>
> "Our understanding of the mind may improve - maybe we will learn to  
> read minds. But maybe there is nothing to read, or maybe we are not  
> interested in what the murderer was thinking when he pulled the  
> trigger. If we take seriously the actor's adage that no man is a  
> villain in his own eyes, we can expect to find, if we ever succeed  
> in peering into the murderer's mind, an elaborate, perhaps quite  
> plausible, rationalization for his deed. But so what? We would  
> punish him all the same."
>
> Eric
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 01:49 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Nick,
>
> I'm still curious about your answer to a challenge you raised.  You wrote,
>
>
> As one of my graduate students used to [cheerfully] say, "but Nick,  
> if you don't have an inner life, it's ok to kill you, right?"
>
> Now, my wisest response to this line of argument would be to go all  
> technocratic and to deny that I have any ethical  dog in this fight  
> at all.   One can, after all, be a moral naturalist and assert that  
> reasoning and argument only come into play when people are trying to  
>  violate their ethical impulses and that, on the whole, people are  
> designed by nature so that they don't kill each other.  Just as I  
> don't think it makes any difference whether you believe in evolution  
>  or creation whether you are a good person, I don't think it makes  
> any difference to being a good person whether you believe  others  
> have an inner life or not.  Thus, I escape the argument by asserting  
>  that it has no MORAL consequences.  I reassure Russ  that my  
> absence  of an inner life does not make me dangerous, and, once he  
> takes that  reassurance seriously, he doesn't have to kill me.  
> Peace is  re-established.
>
>
> It seems to m that you didn't answer your graduate student's  
> challenge. Is it ok to kill you?
>
> The implication of the challenge is that murder is a moral issue  
> only when it is performed on a being with an inner life. Simply  
> terminating the functioning of something (like a robot) is not  
> murder. We use the term "murder" when the thing murdered is  
> understood to have an inner life like our own.
>
> It may be as you say that we have evolved to have that perspective.  
> (I think that's correct.) But so what?  Do you have any (moral)  
> grounds for objecting to your graduate student killing you?  Given  
> your statement "it has no MORAL consequences" apparently your answer  
>  is that from your perspective there is no moral reason for him/her  
> not to kill you. Is that correct?
>
>
> -- Russ
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:08:09 -0700
> From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Was human nature, now EvoDevo
> To: [hidden email], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID:
> <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> It's beautiful here back in LA. So this will be short.
>
> I read and enjoyed the book too. But I didn't find the metaphor misleading.
> (Perhaps I didn't take the metaphor seriously.)
>
> As a programmer, I'm used to having a program whose operational consequences
> depend on things in its environment. As a simple example, consider a loop
> that executes a certain number of times depending on a control parameter. If
> the loop is one of the tools in the toolkit and the parameter is one of the
> controls, the loop--which may generate one vertebra per loop, for
> example--will generate different numbers of vertebrae depending on the
> control parameter.
>
> There's no intelligence or designer. It's a simple two-level construct (the
> mechanism and its control) that are both created by evolutionary processes.
> The vertebra-generating loop is one of the "tools" which appear on multiple
> organisms. The control parameter differs from one organism to another.
>
> The problem is that not enough people know how to think like programmers. By
> the way, I mean that seriously.  See Jeanette Wang on computational
> thinking<http://www.nsf.gov/attachments/114605/public/2009_03_13_reu-sites.ppt>.
>
>
> -- Russ
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Nicholas Thompson <
> [hidden email]> wrote:
>
>>  Sorry.  Misspoke.  Don't really make a distinction between human nature
>> and the human condition.  Each is a creation of the other.  they are
>> dialectically intertwined.... or whatever.  So, you cant disagree with me on
>> that point any more.
>>
>> So, let's take this occasion to transition to a different topic ...
>> development.  I have been Sean Carroll's Endless Forms most Beautiful.  It
>> is the forth book I have read written by a brilliant author designed to
>> explain modern "EvoDevo" to the great unwashed.  And I have to say, I still
>> don't quite "get it"  But I think I am beginning to understand why ... the
>> metaphors they use are bad.  Nobody has come up with a good metaphor to come
>> up with how we now know development to work.  How do we get *pluris e uno?
>> *
>>
>> The stunning discovery of the last 25 years is how widely and in what
>> detail sequences of genes are similar among animals of widely different
>> form.  The metaphor they use is of a genetic tool kit.  Even tho organisms
>> have many different genes, they all share an essential toolkit.  Carroll
>> actually depicts a little toolbox with cubbies  in for the "tools".  The DNA
>> sequences in this basic, shared tool kit are often similar down to the last
>> base.  So even though planaria, bees, octopi, and humans have wildly
>> different eyes, the making of eyes in all of these species is dependent upon
>> a shared sequence of genes that generate a shared bunch of proteins.
>>
>> But the tool kit metaphor leads Carroll into a ghastly anthropomorphic
>> trap.  Once we have tools, we need a craftsman, right?  Well, in Carroll's
>> hand, the tools themselves become the craftsmen.   So, in caption of a
>> photography showing the embryonic development of a frog's "hand" we get the
>> following:   "The BMP4 tool kit a gene marks the tissue between the digits
>> that will die."  In general, reading the text, one is seduced into a vision
>> of the genes or the proteins crawling over the embryo, measuring it out for
>> this and that, and leaving stakes in the ground so that the different
>> contractors that are coming along will know what to put where.
>>
>> Now, don't get me wrong.  I think Carroll's book is stupendous, and I would
>> urge you all to drop what you are doing and order it on Amazon today.  Buy
>> this "toolkit" thing  has to be wrong.  What is really going on is
>> that fundamental physical asymmetries in the ovum are serving as cues that
>> excite portions of embryo  to produce one or more of these "tookkit"
>> proteins, which then defuse ac cross the embryo.   Then the concentration
>> gradients of these proteins, in turn, serve as the cues for the production
>> of proteins that further organize the portions of the embryo for further
>> functions.
>>
>> So, assuming that I have this correctly, what would be  GOOD metaphor to
>> encapsulate this process?  Remember, we have stipulated here repeatedly that
>> all metaphors are faulted and that a GOOD metaphor is one whose faults do
>> not encourage defunct notions of what is going on.  So, for instance, in
>> matters of development, a GOOD metaphor should scrupulously avoid any
>> implication of intelligence in its description of what these "organizing"
>> proteins are doing.
>>
>> Does any one have a better metaphor?
>>
>> If any of you are wondering why I am so verbose and wondering, further,
>> when it will stop, try sending some decent weather to Massachusetts.
>> Eleventh straight day of rain.
>>
>> N
>>
>>
>>
>>  Nicholas S. Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
>> Clark University ([hidden email])
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>  *From:* peggy miller <[hidden email]>
>> *To: *[hidden email]
>> *Sent:* 6/21/2009 11:42:22 AM
>> *Subject:* [FRIAM] vol 72, issue 25 response
>>
>> I only wish to say that I disagree with the statement that "ethical
>> behavior is built on human nature". It is the "human nature" part that I
>> take issue with. I believe each person's sense of ethics comes from a
>> combination of education/experiences, social network, physiological
>> chemistry of that person, IQ, and genetic makeup. That combination causes a
>> person to form a construct of ethics they rely on to defend their behavior.
>> The only other part that throws a crux into their formula is the level of
>> spiritual connection they have to the greater universe, and I am not yet
>> unconvinced that that particular level of connection may also be a genetic
>> thing.
>>
>> thanks for listening.
>> Have a good day!
>>
>> Peggy Miller
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> 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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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:18:32 -0700
> From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Behaviorist Federal Judge
> To: [hidden email], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID:
> <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> See below.
>
> -- Russ Abbott
> _____________________________________________
> Professor, Computer Science
> California State University, Los Angeles
> Cell phone: [phone]
> o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
> [hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> it cannot be the case, pragmatically speaking, that we let other people
>> live because they have an inner life. We all know this cannot be true (Russ
>> included), because one of the axiomatic assumptions for these conversations
>> is that you cannot directly know someone else's mental life. If you cannot
>> know whether or not someone has a mental life, you can't decide whether or
>> not you can kill them based on their having a mental life. Is there any way
>> to make that more obvious?!?
>
>
> I see four problem.
>
>    1. The argument mixes epistemology with ontology. It's one thing to
>    discuss what we can and cannot know -- which tends to change with  
>  technology
>    and our level of sophistication. It's another to discuss what is.  
>  Unless you
>    want to take the position that one cannot talk about what is and can only
>    talk about what can be known, these two should be kept separate.
>    2. An argument can be made that nothing can really be known. After all,
>    what is it to know something?  No matter what one does, one can never be
>    sure.
>    3. To know something implies a knower, which relies on a mental life.
>    4. Simply making the argument and expecting someone to understand it
>    makes no sense unless one assumes a mental life in the speaker and the
>    listener. Without that, all we have are photons generated by a CRT or bits
>    stored in a computer, etc.
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:27:33 -0700
> From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Moral Naturalism (duplicate of RE "nick" etc.)
> To: [hidden email], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID:
> <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> But as you said, that's not a matter of OK-ness. It's a matter of the
> evolutionary environment in which the act occurs. In unstable situations
> (according to the research you site) it is OK.  So (I gather) there is no
> notion of OK as far as you are concerned which is any different from
> survive-and-reproduce. I can understand the position that says whatever
> works is right. But that's different from ethics.  It's more like saying
> that there is no point in talking about ethics as a distinct discipline.
> Perhaps you already said that a while ago.
>
> -- Russ
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
> [hidden email]> wrote:
>
>>   Russ,
>>
>>  It's not OK, but only because my relatives and friends would kill your
>> relatives and friends if you did.  Or, to put the matter more precisely,
>> people who kill other people tend, when social environments are stable, to
>> have had fewer offspring than those that don't.   Ditto Rapists.  Whenever
>>  social environments were unstable (See *Death, Hope, and Sex* by Jim
>> Chisholm) rapists and murders did better, so alot of human cognitive and
>> social developmental apparatus is devoted to figuring out what sort of a
>> situation each individual is in.
>>
>> See  the  review at http://www.behavior.org/journals_bp/2001/amin.pdf.
>>
>> this is the duplicate of a message I sent to the FRIAM list with the (much
>> too large) file attached.  Apologies to the list manager who should feel
>> free to kill the version with the attachment.
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
>> Clark University ([hidden email])
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> 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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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 10
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:35:53 -0600
> From: Steve Smith <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Was human nature, now EvoDevo
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 11
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:49:57 -0600
> From: Steve Smith <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 12
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:55:50 -0700
> From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] A great story about forgetting what's real
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID:
> <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I just came across this amusing
> story<http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/a-great-story-of-big-banks-losing/>that
> illustrates what can happen when one takes a metaphor for reality.
>
> -- Russ
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 13
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:03:34 -0600
> From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Behaviorist Federal Judge
> To: [hidden email]
> Cc: friam <[hidden email]>
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Russ,
>
> Actually, I didnt write what you are countering, here,  but I will  
> defend it anyway.
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Russ Abbott
> To: [hidden email];The Friday Morning Applied Complexity  
>  Coffee Group
> Sent: 6/21/2009 4:18:52 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Behaviorist Federal Judge
>
>
> See below.
>
> -- Russ Abbott
> _____________________________________________
> Professor, Computer Science
> California State University, Los Angeles
> Cell phone: [phone]
> o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Nicholas Thompson  
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> it cannot be the case, pragmatically speaking, that we let other  
> people live because they have an inner life. We all know this cannot  
>  be true (Russ included), because one of the axiomatic assumptions  
> for these conversations is that you cannot directly know someone  
> else's mental life. If you cannot know whether or not someone has a  
> mental life, you can't decide whether or not you can kill them based  
>  on their having a mental life. Is there any way to make that more  
> obvious?!?
>
> I see four problem.
>
> The argument mixes epistemology with ontology. It's one thing to  
> discuss what we can and cannot know -- which tends to change with  
> technology and our level of sophistication. It's another to discuss  
> what is. Unless you want to take the position that one cannot talk  
> about what is and can only talk about what can be known, these two  
> should be kept separate.  nst -->I thought that Russ's  position was  
>  that one cannot IN PRINCIPLE know what is truly in another's mind
>
>
> An argument can be made that nothing can really be known. After all,  
>  what is it to know something?  No matter what one does, one can  
> never be sure.  nst --> Yes, but such sweeping arguments are without  
>  force; since they apply to all knowledge, they dont give one any  
> information about any special features of consciousness, or anything  
>  else for that matter.  More over, they self distruct, since they  
> apply to themselves.
>
> To know something implies a knower, which relies on a mental life.  
> nst --> Just to re-iterate that our argument is not about the  
> existence of mental life; it is about what we actually are talking  
> about when we talk about mental life.   I think we are talking about  
>  third person things, or things that a third person could in  
> principle "see".
>
> Simply making the argument and expecting someone to understand it  
> makes no sense unless one assumes a mental life in the speaker and  
> the listener. Without that, all we have are photons generated by a  
> CRT or bits stored in a computer, etc. nst --> Again, I disagree.    
> What is "mental" adding, here?  Without LIFE, all we have are  
> photons etc.
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 14
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:12:16 -0600
> From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Was human nature, now EvoDevo
> To: [hidden email]
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Steve,
>
> Some little comments in blue.
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Steve Smith
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Sent: 6/21/2009 5:37:03 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Was human nature, now EvoDevo
>
>
> Nick
>
> Sorry.  Misspoke.  Don't really make a distinction between human  
> nature and the human condition.  Each is a creation of the other.    
> they are dialectically intertwined.... or whatever.  So, you cant  
> disagree with me on that point any more.
> Ah, but it is Human Nature *and* the Human Condition to disagree  
> (for fun and profit).
>
> So, let's take this occasion to transition to a different topic ...  
> development.
>
> Embryological models then...?
>
> And I have to say, I still don't quite "get it"  But I think I am  
> beginning to understand why ... the metaphors they use are bad.    
> Nobody has come up with a good metaphor to come up with how we now  
> know development to work.
> Metaphors are like (to use a Simile) using piecewise linear (or more  
>  apt for several reasons, piecewise sigmoids) curves to fit an  
> arbitrary 1-D Function.   Each piece can be pretty good "locally"  
> but begin with, but to stretch the application to far leads to  
> disaster... thus the "piecewise".  Depending on the specific  
> parameters of your linear (or sigmoidal) fit, there are regions  
> where more than one parametric model (or metaphorical target domain)  
>  fit equally well and it only matters which one you choose if you  
> know which direction you are headed away from the region of interest.
>
> How do we get pluris e uno?
>
> nst --> I think the "e" means "from" "many from one"
> Eh?   All are One?   One are One?  We are all one?  All one vs Alone?
> The stunning discovery of the last 25 years is how widely and in  
> what detail sequences of genes are similar among animals of widely  
> different form.  The metaphor they use is of a genetic tool kit.    
> Even tho organisms have many different genes, they all share an  
> essential toolkit.  Carroll actually depicts a little toolbox with  
> cubbies  in for the "tools".  The DNA sequences in this basic,  
> shared tool kit are often similar down to the last base.  So even  
> though planaria, bees, octopi, and humans have wildly different  
> eyes, the making of eyes in all of these species is dependent upon a  
>  shared sequence of genes that generate a shared bunch of proteins.
>
> Actually I believe that eyes are the favorite example of multiple,  
> parallel (and sometimes convergent) evolution.   That is not to say  
> that they don't share some of the same basic proteins, but that  
> their higher level structure (and coding) was (apparently) arrived  
> at independently.
>
> nst -->  I think Carroll would disagree with you.  It's the highest  
> level of coding that seemst to be widely shared.  The Hox proteins  
> and their like.
>
>  I think this might be more like noticing that many "stone age"  
> cultures use "stone", "plant materials", and "animal products" for  
> the basis of their technology.   The fact that around the world that  
>  many different cultures *knapped* stone and then lashed it onto  
> sticks to make spears and arrows and then made atlatls and bows to  
> hurl these missiles, seems more like the situation of  
> re-invention/discovery of eyeballness across many genera.
>
> ...
> what would be  GOOD metaphor to encapsulate this process?  Remember,  
>  we have stipulated here repeatedly that all metaphors are faulted  
> and that a GOOD metaphor is one whose faults do not encourage  
> defunct notions of what is going on.  So, for instance, in matters  
> of development, a GOOD metaphor should scrupulously avoid any  
> implication of intelligence in its description of what these  
> "organizing" proteins are doing.
>
>
> So... I've already used my simile of "piecewise curve fitting" to  
> describe how (inherently multidimensional) metaphors work to model  
> the "real" world in our language.   I believe that a GOOD metaphor  
> has more properties than just having a "good fit" in the dimensions  
> and range of a system/phenomena/concept we are modeling.   A  
> minimally sufficient metaphor would have that.   And if it *also*  
> yielded a *bad fit* in one or more dimensions (especially those  
> which we hold high weight on) such as you describe here with the  
> "toolkit metaphor" immediately calling forth the need of a  
> "toolwielder".   So GOOD metaphor "fits" the phenomena well (within  
> a relevant and desired subset of it's dimensions and range) without  
> yielding "false positive" matches in the source domain ( such as the  
>  "tool wielder" example).  A GREAT metaphor has some other  
> properties, such as being inherently parameterizeable.... such as if  
>  the "toolkit" had tools which could be more or less  
> self-motivated/articulated and in invoking the metaphor, one could  
> appeal to the more rather than less motivated/articulated nature.    
> Another property is that the metaphor can be deliberately "twisted"  
> or "broken" to yield interesting variations.   I suspect the  
> "toolkit metaphor" *does* get broken/twisted to fit, but not very  
> gracefully it would seem.  Some metaphors seem more amenable to  
> (deliberate and thoughtful) distortion than others.  Similarly,  
> *mixing* metaphors can be very useful... blending between two.
>
> nst -->  Steve, I would really like to sit down and study this text  
> with you.  I have been reading on all day, and the metaphoric stew  
> gets lumpier and lumpier with each passing paragraph.  I read one  
> paragraph with 8 different metaphors in it, all more or less  
> inconsistent.
>
>
> Does any one have a better metaphor?
> My training (or lack of imagination) leaves me thinking of gene  
> expression and regulation in cybernetic terms... feedback loops,  
> etc.   This is not new, so probably not useful to you in this case.
>
> nst --> Well, not so fast!  I think metaphors from control systems  
> are natural here.  The more carrol writes, also, the more parallels  
> I see between a gene and a motor neuron.
>
>
> If any of you are wondering why I am so verbose and wondering,  
> further, when it will stop, try sending some decent weather to  
> Massachusetts.
> Eleventh straight day of rain.
> FWIW, I am enjoying your verbosity... and we've been having our own  
> spate of wet weather here in NM... very nice for this time of year...
>
> - Steve
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 15
> Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:16:23 -0600
> From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
> To: [hidden email]
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> the following passage caught me eye:
>
> Half the never-ending hurt in this world seems to come from our  
> thinking we know what other people's intentions are from their  
> actions...
>
> Talk to me a bit about what an intention is to you, what an action  
> is to you, and how they differ.
>
> Nick
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email])
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Steve Smith
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Sent: 6/21/2009 5:51:13 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
>
>
> I am way too animistic in my instincts to go for most of this.
>
> Eric said:
>
> Nick's ethical stance would be based on treating things that act in  
> certain ways as equal to all other things that act in certain ways,  
> and it wouldn't get much more prescriptive than that. The acts he  
> would be interested in would be very sophisticated actions, or  
> combination of actions - such as "contributing to the conversation".  
>  This may seem strange, but again, it is really, really, really, not  
>  that different from a stance that treats all things that  
> "experience  in a certain way" as equal.
>
>
> Yes, I abhor the killing of people (but can think of circumstances  
> when I would endorse or practice it) and by extension abhor (or at  
> least get really queasy at) the killing of things that look anything  
>  like people.  Apes and Monkeys are obvious candidates for the  
> not-kill.   Ditto for things that know how to mimic humans in any  
> way... or have been selected for these traits (think most/all pets,  
> many domesticated animals, etc.).   And add in the things that tweak  
>  my  parent feeling (all creatures exhibiting neotony, big eyes,  
> large head/body ratios, etc.).   Then add in the creatures who may  
> not overtly (or recognizeably) remind me of humans (think Dolphins  
> and other Cetaeceans... little gray creatures from UFO's, etc) that  
> I intellectually (if not intuitively) ascribe intelligence and  
> emotions.
>
> But I can feel the same way about cherished possessions or even  
> coveted possessions of others.  Who hasn't gone to the dump and  
> wanted to pull that "perfectly good armchair" out of the  pile of  
> trash?   I am particularly a sucker for machinery, electronic or  
> otherwise.   Just *try* to throw a "perfectly good"  
> printer/computer/bicycle/chainsaw away in my presence.   I have a  
> boatload (technically a parking-lot-full) of cars that I fell in  
> love with and had to rescue... most of them 20+ years old... and  
> once you rescue them, you can never abandon them, and you can't even  
>  foster them out... after all, who is going to love them as much as  
> you?   And yes, they all drive... though I'm not so sure about the  
> old tech in my shed (computers, printers, etc.) but I suspect they  
> do... why not?
>
> OK... I'm sure this is totally off-topic... excepting that I claim  
> that we *project* so much onto inanimate (or barely animate or  
> animate but barely/hardly human) objects that surely we do the same  
> with people?  I don't trust people who claim they can determine my  
> (or anyones) intentions by our actions... it is too fraught with the  
>  risk of projection.   Half the never-ending hurt in this world  
> seems  to come from our thinking we know what other people's  
> intentions are  from their actions... and the other half seems to  
> come from the  resulting feedback loop of revenge.
>
> - Steve
>
> PS... I think it is "OK" to kill Nick, but there are many, many  
> reasons I do not.  Not the least of which is that I've become quite  
> fond of him.   So don't anyone else try killing Nick to make the  
> point, I would take it personally, project onto you my own ideas of  
> your motivations and seek revenge based on that projection.  (OK...  
> I know... I'm being disingenuous here...)
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> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Friam mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>
>
> End of Friam Digest, Vol 72, Issue 26
> *************************************
>

James R. Stalker, Ph.D.
President & CEO (www.linkedin.com/in/precisionwindfounder)
RESPR, Inc. (www.respr.com)
Anderson Hall, MSC PSL
NMSU
Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA| V:505-438-7155;F:505-438-7111;C:575-571-6354

============================================================
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

[Nick Thompson]

James,

No, I don;t take it hard, at all.  I might only say that I think that it is
useful for people with different perspectives and knowledge to keep trying
to integrate their understandings, even though it is very, very hard.  It
may not be the best spectator sport, but I figured that people could tune
out if they wanted, and I wanted to have the best chance to engage as many
people as possible.  I hope that was not too selfish of me.  

For myself, I found the argument educative if not conclusive.  

It is wonderful to hear from you.   We never got a meteorologist to replace
you at Friam meetings;  we miss you and wish you would come back to Santa
Fe..  About every six months we have a round of conversations about
convection for which you are badly needed.  The cumulus cloud still seems
to me a wonderful example of emergence.  I wish I had a more precise
knowledge of the relationships between the forms of the cloud and the
movements of air currents in it -- which cloud boundaries represent actual
boundaries to the movement of air, and which boundaries represent changes
in the state of air that is moving through those boundaries.  I am pretty
sure that the base of the cloud is the latter kind of boundary, and I am
pretty sure that the bulgy firm rounded top of a non-anviled cloud is of
the former type, but what is going on in and around the anvil, and mammatus
clouds is not clear to me.  Most if what I have read is either too
technical for me to understand or too slack for me to believe.  .      

Let us know how things are going with respr.  Are the Obama initiatives
going to mean a bounty for wind prospecting?  

Nick    



Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

> [Original Message]
> From: <[hidden email]>
> To: <[hidden email]>
> Date: 6/21/2009 10:35:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friam Digest, Vol 72, Issue 26
>
> All,
>
> I sent this comment, see below, yesterday and it apparently got  
> bounced.  Hope it helps a bit.
>
> JRS
>
> --
>
> Hi All,
>
> I couldn't help notice these recent email exchanges between Nick and  
> several others and wanted to offer a comment.
>
> If you all are just having fun through these exchanges of emails,  
> please ignore my comment.  Otherwise, here is my take on it.
>
> People may seem to be able to bring multiply cogent arguments about a  
> subject or a point, where all those arguing may be making sense to  
> different groups of individuals.  Why is that?  It is all about the  
> definition of the subject or the point being argued.  In the absense  
> of clearly understood definitions (such situations do occur amply),  
> people can only try to shoot a moving target and most likely fail.
>
> Even if a clear definition can be created (much easier said than  
> done), people, with their own subjective thoughts, will not descern  
> the subtle deviations from that definition to judge whether or not a  
> specific argument is incorrect relative to that definition.  It takes  
> people that can be extremely objective in order to understand such  
> subjects or points clearly.
>
> **I strongly recommend we spend a heck of a lot more time in defining  
> sharper definitions than in arguing about things that are inadequately  
> defined.**
>
> I hope my comment is not considered a negative criticism nor an insult  
> by any of you involved in these email exchanges.  I know Nick well  
> enough that he won't.
>
> Best regards,
>
> James
>
>
> Quoting [hidden email]:
>
> > Send Friam mailing list submissions to
> > [hidden email]
> >
> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> > [hidden email]
> >
> > You can reach the person managing the list at
> > [hidden email]
> >
> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> > than "Re: Contents of Friam digest..."
> >
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >    1. vol 72, issue 25 response (peggy miller)
> >    2. Re: Nick and dishonest behavior (Russ Abbott)
> >    3. Was human nature, now EvoDevo (Nicholas Thompson)
> >    4. Moral Naturalism (duplicate of RE "nick" etc.) (Nicholas Thompson)
> >    5. Re: Nick and dishonest behavior (ERIC P. CHARLES)
> >    6. Re: Behaviorist Federal Judge (Nicholas Thompson)
> >    7. Re: Was human nature, now EvoDevo (Russ Abbott)
> >    8. Re: Behaviorist Federal Judge (Russ Abbott)
> >    9. Re: Moral Naturalism (duplicate of RE "nick" etc.) (Russ Abbott)
> >   10. Re: Was human nature, now EvoDevo (Steve Smith)
> >   11. Re: Nick and dishonest behavior (Steve Smith)
> >   12. A great story about forgetting what's real (Russ Abbott)
> >   13. Re: Behaviorist Federal Judge (Nicholas Thompson)
> >   14. Re: Was human nature, now EvoDevo (Nicholas Thompson)
> >   15. Re: Nick and dishonest behavior (Nicholas Thompson)
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:40:52 -0600
> > From: peggy miller <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: [FRIAM] vol 72, issue 25 response
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Message-ID:
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > I only wish to say that I disagree with the statement that "ethical

behavior
> > is built on human nature". It is the "human nature" part that I take
issue
> > with. I believe each person's sense of ethics comes from a combination
of
> > education/experiences, social network, physiological chemistry of that
> > person, IQ, and genetic makeup. That combination causes a person to
form a
> > construct of ethics they rely on to defend their behavior. The only
other
> > part that throws a crux into their formula is the level of spiritual
> > connection they have to the greater universe, and I am not yet
unconvinced

> > that that particular level of connection may also be a genetic thing.
> >
> > thanks for listening.
> > Have a good day!
> >
> > Peggy Miller
> > -------------- next part --------------
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> >

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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:49:29 -0700
> > From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
> > To: [hidden email], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> > Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> > Message-ID:
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > Nick,
> >
> > I'm still curious about your answer to a challenge you raised.  You

wrote,
> >
> > As one of my graduate students used to [cheerfully] say, "but Nick, if
> > youdon't have an inner life, it's ok to
> > kill you, right?"
> >
> > Now, my wisest response to this line of argument would be to go all
> > technocratic and to deny that I have any ethical  dog in this fight at
> > all.   One can, after all, be a moral naturalist and assert that
reasoning
> > and argument only come into play when people are trying to violate their
> > ethical impulses and that, on the whole, people are designed by nature
so
> > that they don't kill each other.  Just as I don't think it makes any
> > difference whether you believe in evolution or creation whether you are
a
> > good person, I don't think it makes any difference to being a good
person
> > whether you believe  others have an inner life or not.  Thus, I escape
the
> > argument by asserting that it has no MORAL consequences.  I reassure
Russ
> > that my absence of an inner life does not make me dangerous, and, once
he
> > takes that reassurance seriously, he doesn't have to kill me.  Peace is
> > re-established.
> >
> > It seems to m that you didn't answer your graduate student's challenge.
Is
> > it ok to kill you?
> >
> > The implication of the challenge is that murder is a moral issue only
when
> > it is performed on a being with an inner life. Simply terminating the
> > functioning of something (like a robot) is not murder. We use the term
> > "murder" when the thing murdered is understood to have an inner life
like
> > our own.
> >
> > It may be as you say that we have evolved to have that perspective. (I
think
> > that's correct.) But so what?  Do you have any (moral) grounds for
objecting
> > to your graduate student killing you?  Given your statement "it has no
MORAL
> > consequences" apparently your answer is that from your perspective
there is

> > no moral reason for him/her not to kill you. Is that correct?
> >
> > -- Russ
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 6:47 AM, Nicholas Thompson <
> > [hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> >> I have long felt that the Santa Fe group should find a way to gnash
> >> families.
> >>
> >> Let's do it.
> >>
> >> N
> >>
> >> Nicholas S. Thompson
> >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> >> Clark University ([hidden email])
> >>

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlin
k.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>

> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> > [Original Message]
> >> > From: Steve Smith <[hidden email]>
> >> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> >> [hidden email]>
> >> > Date: 6/19/2009 11:11:50 PM
> >> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
> >> >
> >> > Douglas Roberts wrote:
> >> > > Well, that certainly cleared things up!
> >> > And the most fascinating thing (for the benefit for those who know
> >> > neither I nor Doug personally) is that this was a wonderful

illumination
> >> > for me.  Nothing conclusive, but nicely expansive (for me)...
> >> >
> >> > I think it is time for Doug and I (and our spouses) to break bread,
> >> > share libations, and maybe even some fresh-roast, fresh ground coffee
> >> > late into the night! ( I love/hate being a wide-awake drunk for 2
days

> >> > straight thanks to Doug's killer Scotch followed by excellent
> >> > Fresh-Fresh-Fresh Espresso)
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > - 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
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ============================================================
> >> 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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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 3
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:50:41 -0600
> > From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: [FRIAM] Was human nature, now EvoDevo
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > Sorry.  Misspoke.  Don't really make a distinction between human  
> > nature and the human condition.  Each is a creation of the other.    
> > they are dialectically intertwined.... or whatever.  So, you cant  
> > disagree with me on that point any more.
> >
> > So, let's take this occasion to transition to a different topic ...  
> > development.  I have been Sean Carroll's Endless Forms most  
> > Beautiful.  It is the forth book I have read written by a brilliant  
> > author designed to explain modern "EvoDevo" to the great unwashed.    
> > And I have to say, I still don't quite "get it"  But I think I am  
> > beginning to understand why ... the metaphors they use are bad.    
> > Nobody has come up with a good metaphor to come up with how we now  
> > know development to work.  How do we get pluris e uno?
> >
> > The stunning discovery of the last 25 years is how widely and in  
> > what detail sequences of genes are similar among animals of widely  
> > different form.  The metaphor they use is of a genetic tool kit.    
> > Even tho organisms have many different genes, they all share an  
> > essential toolkit.  Carroll actually depicts a little toolbox with  
> > cubbies  in for the "tools".  The DNA sequences in this basic,  
> > shared tool kit are often similar down to the last base.  So even  
> > though planaria, bees, octopi, and humans have wildly different  
> > eyes, the making of eyes in all of these species is dependent upon a  
> >  shared sequence of genes that generate a shared bunch of proteins.
> >
> > But the tool kit metaphor leads Carroll into a ghastly  
> > anthropomorphic trap.  Once we have tools, we need a craftsman,  
> > right?  Well, in Carroll's hand, the tools themselves become the  
> > craftsmen.   So, in caption of a photography showing the embryonic  
> > development of a frog's "hand" we get the following:   "The BMP4  
> > tool kit a gene marks the tissue between the digits that will die."  
> >  In general, reading the text, one is seduced into a vision of the  
> > genes or the proteins crawling over the embryo, measuring it out for  
> >  this and that, and leaving stakes in the ground so that the  
> > different contractors that are coming along will know what to put  
> > where.
> >
> > Now, don't get me wrong.  I think Carroll's book is stupendous, and  
> > I would urge you all to drop what you are doing and order it on  
> > Amazon today.  Buy this "toolkit" thing  has to be wrong.  What is  
> > really going on is that fundamental physical asymmetries in the ovum  
> >  are serving as cues that excite portions of embryo  to produce one  
> > or more of these "tookkit" proteins, which then defuse ac cross the  
> > embryo.   Then the concentration gradients of these proteins, in  
> > turn, serve as the cues for the production of proteins that further  
> > organize the portions of the embryo for further functions.
> >
> > So, assuming that I have this correctly, what would be  GOOD  
> > metaphor to encapsulate this process?  Remember, we have stipulated  
> > here repeatedly that all metaphors are faulted and that a GOOD  
> > metaphor is one whose faults do not encourage defunct notions of  
> > what is going on.  So, for instance, in matters of development, a  
> > GOOD metaphor should scrupulously avoid any implication of  
> > intelligence in its description of what these "organizing" proteins  
> > are doing.
> >
> > Does any one have a better metaphor?
> >
> > If any of you are wondering why I am so verbose and wondering,  
> > further, when it will stop, try sending some decent weather to  
> > Massachusetts.
> > Eleventh straight day of rain.
> >
> > N
> >
> >
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University ([hidden email])
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: peggy miller
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Sent: 6/21/2009 11:42:22 AM
> > Subject: [FRIAM] vol 72, issue 25 response
> >
> >
> > I only wish to say that I disagree with the statement that "ethical  
> > behavior is built on human nature". It is the "human nature" part  
> > that I take issue with. I believe each person's sense of ethics  
> > comes from a combination of education/experiences, social network,  
> > physiological chemistry of that person, IQ, and genetic makeup. That  
> >  combination causes a person to form a construct of ethics they rely  
> >  on to defend their behavior. The only other part that throws a crux  
> >  into their formula is the level of spiritual connection they have  
> > to  the greater universe, and I am not yet unconvinced that that  
> > particular level of connection may also be a genetic thing.
> >
> > thanks for listening.
> > Have a good day!
> >
> > Peggy Miller
> > -------------- next part --------------
> > An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> > URL:  
> >

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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 4
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:40:51 -0600
> > From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: [FRIAM] Moral Naturalism (duplicate of RE "nick" etc.)
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Cc: [hidden email]
> > Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > Russ,
> >
> >  It's not OK, but only because my relatives and friends would kill  
> > your relatives and friends if you did.  Or, to put the matter more  
> > precisely, people who kill other people tend, when social  
> > environments are stable, to have had fewer offspring than those that  
> >  don't.   Ditto Rapists.  Whenever  social environments were  
> > unstable  (See Death, Hope, and Sex by Jim Chisholm) rapists and  
> > murders did  better, so alot of human cognitive and social  
> > developmental  apparatus is devoted to figuring out what sort of a  
> > situation each  individual is in.
> >
> > See  the  review at http://www.behavior.org/journals_bp/2001/amin.pdf.
> >
> > this is the duplicate of a message I sent to the FRIAM list with the  
> >  (much too large) file attached.  Apologies to the list manager who  
> > should feel free to kill the version with the attachment.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University ([hidden email])
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> > -------------- next part --------------
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> >

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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 5
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:13:07 -0400
> > From: "ERIC P. CHARLES" <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> >
> > Bringing something from a P.S. up to the front:
> >
> > Nick's ethical
> > stance would
> > be based on treating things that act in certain ways as equal to all

other
> > things that act in certain ways, and it wouldn't get much more
prescriptive
> > than that. The
> > acts he would be interested in would be very sophisticated actions, or
> > combination of actions - such as "contributing to the conversation".
This may
> > seem strange, but again, it is
> > really, really, really, not that different from a stance that treats  
> >  all things
> > that "experience in a certain way" as equal.
> >
> > ----
> >
> > To elaborate that, it cannot be the case, pragmatically speaking, that
we let
> > other people live because they have an inner life. We all know this
cannot be
> > true (Russ included), because one of the axiomatic assumptions for these
> > conversations is that you cannot directly know someone else's mental
life. If
> > you cannot know whether or not someone has a mental life, you can't
decide
> > whether or not you can kill them based on their having a mental  
> > life. Is there
> > any way to make that more obvious?!?
> >
> > The way this is problem is normally dealt with is for people to say  
> > that we can
> > gain insight into people's mental lives by observing their behavior.  
> >  The logic
> > goes 1) we see people act a certain way, 2) we infer that they have a
mental
> > life, 3) we decide that we cannot kill them (barring them being jerks or
> > believing in the wrong god). Now, the irony of a dualistic philosophy
is in
> > step 2, where their inner life somehow comes to be entirely in our
heads, not
> > in theirs! Its crazy talk. Philosophers have spent millennia trying  
> > to connect
> > steps 2 and 3, and getting no where. Much better to just look at the
part of
> > the equation that is actually observable, steps 1 and 3 - the  
> > relation between
> > the actions and the ethical decision. When you do that, you see that  
> >  we aren't
> > allowed to kill people who act in certain ways. That's what its always
been,
> > despite all the smoke and mirrors created by point 2. The obvious,  
> > but totally
> > unasked, empirical question is "What are the ways that people act that
> > distinguish whether or not we can kill them." We just don't need to  
> > talk about
> > inner lives at all to have that conversation. We just don't!  The  
> > same applies
> > to all sub-categories of interest. We judge someone a "murder" based on
some
> > aspect of their actions and the circumstances within which the actions
took
> > place. Period. It cannot be that we judge them a murder based on their
> > inner-mind.
> >
> > Thus, while Nick's position does have something to say about the  
> > form of rules
> > in moral systems (i.e., that they relate behavior to consequences),  
> > it does not
> > have implications for what the content of the rules should be. In that
sense,
> > it IS morally neutral. Whether or not people have inner-lives has  
> > never, at any
> > point, effected ethics in practice. Certainly Nick could elaborate his
own
> > moral views, by suggesting some rules, but that is completely
tangential to
> > this point.
> >
> > This may seem terribly abstract, but it is not to be taken lightly.
Judge
> > Posner (appellate judge for the Federal 7th Circuit) has an  
> > excellent book, and
> > quite a lot of legal precedence arguing that talk of an inner mental  
> >  life adds
> > nothing to law, and in fact seriously detracts from it. Here are two
quotes
> > from him:
> >
> > "Obviously most adults and older children can and do speak without  
> > vocalization
> > (that is, can "conceal their thoughts") and form mental images. But this
> > barebones concept of mind, which essentially equates mind to  
> > consciousness, is
> > different from the idea that there is a something, the "mind", which is
the
> > locus of intentions, the invisible puppeteer, the inner man or woman.
It is
> > that idea which may have no consequences for law and should perhaps be
> > discarded, despite the law's emphatic... commitment to it."
> >
> > "Our understanding of the mind may improve - maybe we will learn to  
> > read minds.
> > But maybe there is nothing to read, or maybe we are not interested  
> > in what the
> > murderer was thinking when he pulled the trigger. If we take seriously
the
> > actor's adage that no man is a villain in his own eyes, we can  
> > expect to find,
> > if we ever succeed in peering into the murderer's mind, an elaborate,
perhaps
> > quite plausible, rationalization for his deed. But so what? We would  
> >  punish him
> > all the same."
> >
> > Eric
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 01:49 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> Nick,
> >>
> >> I'm still curious about your answer to a challenge you raised.  You
wrote,
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >> As one of my graduate students used to [cheerfully] say, "but Nick, if
you

> > don't have an inner life, it's ok to kill you, right?"
> >
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > Now, my wisest response to this
> > line of argument would be to go all technocratic and to deny that I
> > have any ethical  dog in this fight at all.   One can, after all, be a
> > moral naturalist and assert that reasoning and argument only come into
> > play when people are trying to violate their ethical impulses and that,
> > on the whole, people are designed by nature so that they don't kill  
> > each other.
> >  Just as I don't think it makes any difference whether you believe  
> > in evolution
> > or creation whether you are a good person, I don't think it makes any
> > difference to being a good person whether you
> > believe  others have an inner life or not.  Thus, I escape the argument
> > by asserting that it has no MORAL consequences.  I reassure Russ  that
> > my absence of an inner life does not make me dangerous, and, once he
> > takes that reassurance seriously, he doesn't have to kill me.  Peace is
> > re-established.
> >>
> >
> >
> >> It seems to m that you didn't answer your graduate student's  
> >> challenge. Is it
> > ok to kill you?
> >>
> >> The implication of the challenge is that murder is a moral issue  
> >> only when it
> > is performed on a being with an inner life. Simply terminating the  
> > functioning
> > of something (like a robot) is not murder. We use the term "murder"

when the
> > thing murdered is understood to have an inner life like our own.
> >>
> >> It may be as you say that we have evolved to have that perspective. (I
think
> > that's correct.) But so what?  Do you have any (moral) grounds for  
> > objecting to
> > your graduate student killing you?  Given your statement "it has no
MORAL

> > consequences" apparently your answer is that from your perspective  
> > there is no
> > moral reason for him/her not to kill you. Is that correct?
> >>
> >
> >
> >> -- Russ
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > -------------- next part --------------
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> >

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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 6
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:56:15 -0600
> > From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Behaviorist Federal Judge
> > To: "friam" <[hidden email]>
> > Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > Wow!  I never thought I would see the like of it!
> >
> > [I changed the subject line;  even an exhibitionist has his limits.]
> >
> > n
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University ([hidden email])
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: ERIC P. CHARLES
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Sent: 6/21/2009 2:14:29 PM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
> >
> >
> > Bringing something from a P.S. up to the front:
> >
> > Nick's ethical stance would be based on treating things that act in  
> > certain ways as equal to all other things that act in certain ways,  
> > and it wouldn't get much more prescriptive than that. The acts he  
> > would be interested in would be very sophisticated actions, or  
> > combination of actions - such as "contributing to the conversation".  
> >  This may seem strange, but again, it is really, really, really, not  
> >  that different from a stance that treats all things that  
> > "experience  in a certain way" as equal.
> >
> > ----
> >
> > To elaborate that, it cannot be the case, pragmatically speaking,  
> > that we let other people live because they have an inner life. We  
> > all know this cannot be true (Russ included), because one of the  
> > axiomatic assumptions for these conversations is that you cannot  
> > directly know someone else's mental life. If you cannot know whether  
> >  or not someone has a mental life, you can't decide whether or not  
> > you can kill them based on their having a mental life. Is there any  
> > way to make that more obvious?!?
> >
> > The way this is problem is normally dealt with is for people to say  
> > that we can gain insight into people's mental lives by observing  
> > their behavior. The logic goes 1) we see people act a certain way,  
> > 2) we infer that they have a mental life, 3) we decide that we  
> > cannot kill them (barring them being jerks or believing in the wrong  
> >  god). Now, the irony of a dualistic philosophy is in step 2, where  
> > their inner life somehow comes to be entirely in our heads, not in  
> > theirs! Its crazy talk. Philosophers have spent millennia trying to  
> > connect steps 2 and 3, and getting no where. Much better to just  
> > look at the part of the equation that is actually observable, steps  
> > 1 and 3 - the relation between the actions and the ethical decision.  
> >  When you do that, you see that we aren't allowed to kill people who  
> >  act in certain ways. That's what its always been, despite all the  
> > smoke and mirrors created by point 2. The obvious, but totally  
> > unasked, empirical question is "What are the ways that people act  
> > that distinguish whether or not we can kill them." We just don't  
> > need to talk about inner lives at all to have that conversation. We  
> > just don't!  The same applies to all sub-categories of interest. We  
> > judge someone a "murder" based on some aspect of their actions and  
> > the circumstances within which the actions took place. Period. It  
> > cannot be that we judge them a murder based on their inner-mind.
> >
> > Thus, while Nick's position does have something to say about the  
> > form of rules in moral systems (i.e., that they relate behavior to  
> > consequences), it does not have implications for what the content of  
> >  the rules should be. In that sense, it IS morally neutral. Whether  
> > or not people have inner-lives has never, at any point, effected  
> > ethics in practice. Certainly Nick could elaborate his own moral  
> > views, by suggesting some rules, but that is completely tangential  
> > to this point.
> >
> > This may seem terribly abstract, but it is not to be taken lightly.  
> > Judge Posner (appellate judge for the Federal 7th Circuit) has an  
> > excellent book, and quite a lot of legal precedence arguing that  
> > talk of an inner mental life adds nothing to law, and in fact  
> > seriously detracts from it. Here are two quotes from him:
> >
> > "Obviously most adults and older children can and do speak without  
> > vocalization (that is, can "conceal their thoughts") and form mental  
> >  images. But this barebones concept of mind, which essentially  
> > equates mind to consciousness, is different from the idea that there  
> >  is a something, the "mind", which is the locus of intentions, the  
> > invisible puppeteer, the inner man or woman. It is that idea which  
> > may have no consequences for law and shou! ld perhaps be discarded,  
> > despite the law's emphatic... commitment to it."
> >
> > "Our understanding of the mind may improve - maybe we will learn to  
> > read minds. But maybe there is nothing to read, or maybe we are not  
> > interested in what the murderer was thinking when he pulled the  
> > trigger. If we take seriously the actor's adage that no man is a  
> > villain in his own eyes, we can expect to find, if we ever succeed  
> > in peering into the murderer's mind, an elaborate, perhaps quite  
> > plausible, rationalization for his deed. But so what? We would  
> > punish him all the same."
> >
> > Eric
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 01:49 PM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>

wrote:
> >
> > Nick,
> >
> > I'm still curious about your answer to a challenge you raised.  You
wrote,

> >
> >
> > As one of my graduate students used to [cheerfully] say, "but Nick,  
> > if you don't have an inner life, it's ok to kill you, right?"
> >
> > Now, my wisest response to this line of argument would be to go all  
> > technocratic and to deny that I have any ethical  dog in this fight  
> > at all.   One can, after all, be a moral naturalist and assert that  
> > reasoning and argument only come into play when people are trying to  
> >  violate their ethical impulses and that, on the whole, people are  
> > designed by nature so that they don't kill each other.  Just as I  
> > don't think it makes any difference whether you believe in evolution  
> >  or creation whether you are a good person, I don't think it makes  
> > any difference to being a good person whether you believe  others  
> > have an inner life or not.  Thus, I escape the argument by asserting  
> >  that it has no MORAL consequences.  I reassure Russ  that my  
> > absence  of an inner life does not make me dangerous, and, once he  
> > takes that  reassurance seriously, he doesn't have to kill me.  
> > Peace is  re-established.
> >
> >
> > It seems to m that you didn't answer your graduate student's  
> > challenge. Is it ok to kill you?
> >
> > The implication of the challenge is that murder is a moral issue  
> > only when it is performed on a being with an inner life. Simply  
> > terminating the functioning of something (like a robot) is not  
> > murder. We use the term "murder" when the thing murdered is  
> > understood to have an inner life like our own.
> >
> > It may be as you say that we have evolved to have that perspective.  
> > (I think that's correct.) But so what?  Do you have any (moral)  
> > grounds for objecting to your graduate student killing you?  Given  
> > your statement "it has no MORAL consequences" apparently your answer  
> >  is that from your perspective there is no moral reason for him/her  
> > not to kill you. Is that correct?
> >
> >
> > -- Russ
> > -------------- next part --------------
> > An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> > URL:  
> >

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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 7
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:08:09 -0700
> > From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Was human nature, now EvoDevo
> > To: [hidden email], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> > Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> > Message-ID:
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > It's beautiful here back in LA. So this will be short.
> >
> > I read and enjoyed the book too. But I didn't find the metaphor

misleading.
> > (Perhaps I didn't take the metaphor seriously.)
> >
> > As a programmer, I'm used to having a program whose operational
consequences
> > depend on things in its environment. As a simple example, consider a
loop
> > that executes a certain number of times depending on a control
parameter. If
> > the loop is one of the tools in the toolkit and the parameter is one of
the
> > controls, the loop--which may generate one vertebra per loop, for
> > example--will generate different numbers of vertebrae depending on the
> > control parameter.
> >
> > There's no intelligence or designer. It's a simple two-level construct
(the
> > mechanism and its control) that are both created by evolutionary
processes.
> > The vertebra-generating loop is one of the "tools" which appear on
multiple
> > organisms. The control parameter differs from one organism to another.
> >
> > The problem is that not enough people know how to think like
programmers. By
> > the way, I mean that seriously.  See Jeanette Wang on computational
> >
thinking<http://www.nsf.gov/attachments/114605/public/2009_03_13_reu-sites.p
pt>.
> >
> >
> > -- Russ
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Nicholas Thompson <
> > [hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> >>  Sorry.  Misspoke.  Don't really make a distinction between human
nature
> >> and the human condition.  Each is a creation of the other.  they are
> >> dialectically intertwined.... or whatever.  So, you cant disagree with
me on
> >> that point any more.
> >>
> >> So, let's take this occasion to transition to a different topic ...
> >> development.  I have been Sean Carroll's Endless Forms most Beautiful.
It
> >> is the forth book I have read written by a brilliant author designed to
> >> explain modern "EvoDevo" to the great unwashed.  And I have to say, I
still
> >> don't quite "get it"  But I think I am beginning to understand why ...
the
> >> metaphors they use are bad.  Nobody has come up with a good metaphor
to come
> >> up with how we now know development to work.  How do we get *pluris e
uno?
> >> *
> >>
> >> The stunning discovery of the last 25 years is how widely and in what
> >> detail sequences of genes are similar among animals of widely different
> >> form.  The metaphor they use is of a genetic tool kit.  Even tho
organisms
> >> have many different genes, they all share an essential toolkit.
Carroll
> >> actually depicts a little toolbox with cubbies  in for the "tools".
The DNA
> >> sequences in this basic, shared tool kit are often similar down to the
last
> >> base.  So even though planaria, bees, octopi, and humans have wildly
> >> different eyes, the making of eyes in all of these species is
dependent upon
> >> a shared sequence of genes that generate a shared bunch of proteins.
> >>
> >> But the tool kit metaphor leads Carroll into a ghastly anthropomorphic
> >> trap.  Once we have tools, we need a craftsman, right?  Well, in
Carroll's
> >> hand, the tools themselves become the craftsmen.   So, in caption of a
> >> photography showing the embryonic development of a frog's "hand" we
get the
> >> following:   "The BMP4 tool kit a gene marks the tissue between the
digits
> >> that will die."  In general, reading the text, one is seduced into a
vision
> >> of the genes or the proteins crawling over the embryo, measuring it
out for
> >> this and that, and leaving stakes in the ground so that the different
> >> contractors that are coming along will know what to put where.
> >>
> >> Now, don't get me wrong.  I think Carroll's book is stupendous, and I
would
> >> urge you all to drop what you are doing and order it on Amazon today.
Buy
> >> this "toolkit" thing  has to be wrong.  What is really going on is
> >> that fundamental physical asymmetries in the ovum are serving as cues
that
> >> excite portions of embryo  to produce one or more of these "tookkit"
> >> proteins, which then defuse ac cross the embryo.   Then the
concentration
> >> gradients of these proteins, in turn, serve as the cues for the
production
> >> of proteins that further organize the portions of the embryo for
further
> >> functions.
> >>
> >> So, assuming that I have this correctly, what would be  GOOD metaphor
to
> >> encapsulate this process?  Remember, we have stipulated here
repeatedly that
> >> all metaphors are faulted and that a GOOD metaphor is one whose faults
do
> >> not encourage defunct notions of what is going on.  So, for instance,
in
> >> matters of development, a GOOD metaphor should scrupulously avoid any
> >> implication of intelligence in its description of what these
"organizing"

> >> proteins are doing.
> >>
> >> Does any one have a better metaphor?
> >>
> >> If any of you are wondering why I am so verbose and wondering, further,
> >> when it will stop, try sending some decent weather to Massachusetts.
> >> Eleventh straight day of rain.
> >>
> >> N
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>  Nicholas S. Thompson
> >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> >> Clark University ([hidden email])
> >>

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlin
k.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>

> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >>  *From:* peggy miller <[hidden email]>
> >> *To: *[hidden email]
> >> *Sent:* 6/21/2009 11:42:22 AM
> >> *Subject:* [FRIAM] vol 72, issue 25 response
> >>
> >> I only wish to say that I disagree with the statement that "ethical
> >> behavior is built on human nature". It is the "human nature" part that

I
> >> take issue with. I believe each person's sense of ethics comes from a
> >> combination of education/experiences, social network, physiological
> >> chemistry of that person, IQ, and genetic makeup. That combination
causes a
> >> person to form a construct of ethics they rely on to defend their
behavior.
> >> The only other part that throws a crux into their formula is the level
of
> >> spiritual connection they have to the greater universe, and I am not
yet
> >> unconvinced that that particular level of connection may also be a
genetic

> >> thing.
> >>
> >> thanks for listening.
> >> Have a good day!
> >>
> >> Peggy Miller
> >>
> >>
> >> ============================================================
> >> 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
> >>
> > -------------- next part --------------
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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 8
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:18:32 -0700
> > From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Behaviorist Federal Judge
> > To: [hidden email], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> > Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> > Message-ID:
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > See below.
> >
> > -- Russ Abbott
> > _____________________________________________
> > Professor, Computer Science
> > California State University, Los Angeles
> > Cell phone: [phone]
> > o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
> > [hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> >> it cannot be the case, pragmatically speaking, that we let other people
> >> live because they have an inner life. We all know this cannot be true

(Russ
> >> included), because one of the axiomatic assumptions for these
conversations
> >> is that you cannot directly know someone else's mental life. If you
cannot
> >> know whether or not someone has a mental life, you can't decide
whether or
> >> not you can kill them based on their having a mental life. Is there
any way

> >> to make that more obvious?!?
> >
> >
> > I see four problem.
> >
> >    1. The argument mixes epistemology with ontology. It's one thing to
> >    discuss what we can and cannot know -- which tends to change with  
> >  technology
> >    and our level of sophistication. It's another to discuss what is.  
> >  Unless you
> >    want to take the position that one cannot talk about what is and can

only
> >    talk about what can be known, these two should be kept separate.
> >    2. An argument can be made that nothing can really be known. After
all,
> >    what is it to know something?  No matter what one does, one can
never be
> >    sure.
> >    3. To know something implies a knower, which relies on a mental life.
> >    4. Simply making the argument and expecting someone to understand it
> >    makes no sense unless one assumes a mental life in the speaker and
the
> >    listener. Without that, all we have are photons generated by a CRT
or bits
> >    stored in a computer, etc.
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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 9
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:27:33 -0700
> > From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Moral Naturalism (duplicate of RE "nick" etc.)
> > To: [hidden email], The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
> > Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> > Message-ID:
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > But as you said, that's not a matter of OK-ness. It's a matter of the
> > evolutionary environment in which the act occurs. In unstable situations
> > (according to the research you site) it is OK.  So (I gather) there is

no

> > notion of OK as far as you are concerned which is any different from
> > survive-and-reproduce. I can understand the position that says whatever
> > works is right. But that's different from ethics.  It's more like saying
> > that there is no point in talking about ethics as a distinct discipline.
> > Perhaps you already said that a while ago.
> >
> > -- Russ
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Nicholas Thompson <
> > [hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> >>   Russ,
> >>
> >>  It's not OK, but only because my relatives and friends would kill your
> >> relatives and friends if you did.  Or, to put the matter more

precisely,
> >> people who kill other people tend, when social environments are
stable, to
> >> have had fewer offspring than those that don't.   Ditto Rapists.
Whenever
> >>  social environments were unstable (See *Death, Hope, and Sex* by Jim
> >> Chisholm) rapists and murders did better, so alot of human cognitive
and
> >> social developmental apparatus is devoted to figuring out what sort of
a
> >> situation each individual is in.
> >>
> >> See  the  review at http://www.behavior.org/journals_bp/2001/amin.pdf.
> >>
> >> this is the duplicate of a message I sent to the FRIAM list with the
(much
> >> too large) file attached.  Apologies to the list manager who should
feel
> >> free to kill the version with the attachment.
> >>
> >> Nick
> >>
> >>
> >> Nicholas S. Thompson
> >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> >> Clark University ([hidden email])
> >>
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlin
k.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>

> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ============================================================
> >> 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
> >>
> > -------------- next part --------------
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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 10
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:35:53 -0600
> > From: Steve Smith <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Was human nature, now EvoDevo
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> > URL:  
> >

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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 11
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:49:57 -0600
> > From: Steve Smith <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> > URL:  
> >

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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 12
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:55:50 -0700
> > From: Russ Abbott <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: [FRIAM] A great story about forgetting what's real
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Message-ID:
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > I just came across this amusing
> >

story<http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/a-great-story-of-big-banks
-losing/>that
> > illustrates what can happen when one takes a metaphor for reality.
> >
> > -- Russ
> > -------------- next part --------------
> > An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> > URL:  
> >
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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 13
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:03:34 -0600
> > From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Behaviorist Federal Judge
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Cc: friam <[hidden email]>
> > Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > Russ,
> >
> > Actually, I didnt write what you are countering, here,  but I will  
> > defend it anyway.
> >
> >
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University ([hidden email])
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Russ Abbott
> > To: [hidden email];The Friday Morning Applied Complexity  
> >  Coffee Group
> > Sent: 6/21/2009 4:18:52 PM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Behaviorist Federal Judge
> >
> >
> > See below.
> >
> > -- Russ Abbott
> > _____________________________________________
> > Professor, Computer Science
> > California State University, Los Angeles
> > Cell phone: [phone]
> > o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Nicholas Thompson  
> > <[hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> > it cannot be the case, pragmatically speaking, that we let other  
> > people live because they have an inner life. We all know this cannot  
> >  be true (Russ included), because one of the axiomatic assumptions  
> > for these conversations is that you cannot directly know someone  
> > else's mental life. If you cannot know whether or not someone has a  
> > mental life, you can't decide whether or not you can kill them based  
> >  on their having a mental life. Is there any way to make that more  
> > obvious?!?
> >
> > I see four problem.
> >
> > The argument mixes epistemology with ontology. It's one thing to  
> > discuss what we can and cannot know -- which tends to change with  
> > technology and our level of sophistication. It's another to discuss  
> > what is. Unless you want to take the position that one cannot talk  
> > about what is and can only talk about what can be known, these two  
> > should be kept separate.  nst -->I thought that Russ's  position was  
> >  that one cannot IN PRINCIPLE know what is truly in another's mind
> >
> >
> > An argument can be made that nothing can really be known. After all,  
> >  what is it to know something?  No matter what one does, one can  
> > never be sure.  nst --> Yes, but such sweeping arguments are without  
> >  force; since they apply to all knowledge, they dont give one any  
> > information about any special features of consciousness, or anything  
> >  else for that matter.  More over, they self distruct, since they  
> > apply to themselves.
> >
> > To know something implies a knower, which relies on a mental life.  
> > nst --> Just to re-iterate that our argument is not about the  
> > existence of mental life; it is about what we actually are talking  
> > about when we talk about mental life.   I think we are talking about  
> >  third person things, or things that a third person could in  
> > principle "see".
> >
> > Simply making the argument and expecting someone to understand it  
> > makes no sense unless one assumes a mental life in the speaker and  
> > the listener. Without that, all we have are photons generated by a  
> > CRT or bits stored in a computer, etc. nst --> Again, I disagree.    
> > What is "mental" adding, here?  Without LIFE, all we have are  
> > photons etc.
> > -------------- next part --------------
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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 14
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:12:16 -0600
> > From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Was human nature, now EvoDevo
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > Steve,
> >
> > Some little comments in blue.
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University ([hidden email])
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Steve Smith
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Sent: 6/21/2009 5:37:03 PM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Was human nature, now EvoDevo
> >
> >
> > Nick
> >
> > Sorry.  Misspoke.  Don't really make a distinction between human  
> > nature and the human condition.  Each is a creation of the other.    
> > they are dialectically intertwined.... or whatever.  So, you cant  
> > disagree with me on that point any more.
> > Ah, but it is Human Nature *and* the Human Condition to disagree  
> > (for fun and profit).
> >
> > So, let's take this occasion to transition to a different topic ...  
> > development.
> >
> > Embryological models then...?
> >
> > And I have to say, I still don't quite "get it"  But I think I am  
> > beginning to understand why ... the metaphors they use are bad.    
> > Nobody has come up with a good metaphor to come up with how we now  
> > know development to work.
> > Metaphors are like (to use a Simile) using piecewise linear (or more  
> >  apt for several reasons, piecewise sigmoids) curves to fit an  
> > arbitrary 1-D Function.   Each piece can be pretty good "locally"  
> > but begin with, but to stretch the application to far leads to  
> > disaster... thus the "piecewise".  Depending on the specific  
> > parameters of your linear (or sigmoidal) fit, there are regions  
> > where more than one parametric model (or metaphorical target domain)  
> >  fit equally well and it only matters which one you choose if you  
> > know which direction you are headed away from the region of interest.
> >
> > How do we get pluris e uno?
> >
> > nst --> I think the "e" means "from" "many from one"
> > Eh?   All are One?   One are One?  We are all one?  All one vs Alone?
> > The stunning discovery of the last 25 years is how widely and in  
> > what detail sequences of genes are similar among animals of widely  
> > different form.  The metaphor they use is of a genetic tool kit.    
> > Even tho organisms have many different genes, they all share an  
> > essential toolkit.  Carroll actually depicts a little toolbox with  
> > cubbies  in for the "tools".  The DNA sequences in this basic,  
> > shared tool kit are often similar down to the last base.  So even  
> > though planaria, bees, octopi, and humans have wildly different  
> > eyes, the making of eyes in all of these species is dependent upon a  
> >  shared sequence of genes that generate a shared bunch of proteins.
> >
> > Actually I believe that eyes are the favorite example of multiple,  
> > parallel (and sometimes convergent) evolution.   That is not to say  
> > that they don't share some of the same basic proteins, but that  
> > their higher level structure (and coding) was (apparently) arrived  
> > at independently.
> >
> > nst -->  I think Carroll would disagree with you.  It's the highest  
> > level of coding that seemst to be widely shared.  The Hox proteins  
> > and their like.
> >
> >  I think this might be more like noticing that many "stone age"  
> > cultures use "stone", "plant materials", and "animal products" for  
> > the basis of their technology.   The fact that around the world that  
> >  many different cultures *knapped* stone and then lashed it onto  
> > sticks to make spears and arrows and then made atlatls and bows to  
> > hurl these missiles, seems more like the situation of  
> > re-invention/discovery of eyeballness across many genera.
> >
> > ...
> > what would be  GOOD metaphor to encapsulate this process?  Remember,  
> >  we have stipulated here repeatedly that all metaphors are faulted  
> > and that a GOOD metaphor is one whose faults do not encourage  
> > defunct notions of what is going on.  So, for instance, in matters  
> > of development, a GOOD metaphor should scrupulously avoid any  
> > implication of intelligence in its description of what these  
> > "organizing" proteins are doing.
> >
> >
> > So... I've already used my simile of "piecewise curve fitting" to  
> > describe how (inherently multidimensional) metaphors work to model  
> > the "real" world in our language.   I believe that a GOOD metaphor  
> > has more properties than just having a "good fit" in the dimensions  
> > and range of a system/phenomena/concept we are modeling.   A  
> > minimally sufficient metaphor would have that.   And if it *also*  
> > yielded a *bad fit* in one or more dimensions (especially those  
> > which we hold high weight on) such as you describe here with the  
> > "toolkit metaphor" immediately calling forth the need of a  
> > "toolwielder".   So GOOD metaphor "fits" the phenomena well (within  
> > a relevant and desired subset of it's dimensions and range) without  
> > yielding "false positive" matches in the source domain ( such as the  
> >  "tool wielder" example).  A GREAT metaphor has some other  
> > properties, such as being inherently parameterizeable.... such as if  
> >  the "toolkit" had tools which could be more or less  
> > self-motivated/articulated and in invoking the metaphor, one could  
> > appeal to the more rather than less motivated/articulated nature.    
> > Another property is that the metaphor can be deliberately "twisted"  
> > or "broken" to yield interesting variations.   I suspect the  
> > "toolkit metaphor" *does* get broken/twisted to fit, but not very  
> > gracefully it would seem.  Some metaphors seem more amenable to  
> > (deliberate and thoughtful) distortion than others.  Similarly,  
> > *mixing* metaphors can be very useful... blending between two.
> >
> > nst -->  Steve, I would really like to sit down and study this text  
> > with you.  I have been reading on all day, and the metaphoric stew  
> > gets lumpier and lumpier with each passing paragraph.  I read one  
> > paragraph with 8 different metaphors in it, all more or less  
> > inconsistent.
> >
> >
> > Does any one have a better metaphor?
> > My training (or lack of imagination) leaves me thinking of gene  
> > expression and regulation in cybernetic terms... feedback loops,  
> > etc.   This is not new, so probably not useful to you in this case.
> >
> > nst --> Well, not so fast!  I think metaphors from control systems  
> > are natural here.  The more carrol writes, also, the more parallels  
> > I see between a gene and a motor neuron.
> >
> >
> > If any of you are wondering why I am so verbose and wondering,  
> > further, when it will stop, try sending some decent weather to  
> > Massachusetts.
> > Eleventh straight day of rain.
> > FWIW, I am enjoying your verbosity... and we've been having our own  
> > spate of wet weather here in NM... very nice for this time of year...
> >
> > - Steve
> > -------------- next part --------------
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> >

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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 15
> > Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:16:23 -0600
> > From: "Nicholas Thompson" <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > the following passage caught me eye:
> >
> > Half the never-ending hurt in this world seems to come from our  
> > thinking we know what other people's intentions are from their  
> > actions...
> >
> > Talk to me a bit about what an intention is to you, what an action  
> > is to you, and how they differ.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> > Clark University ([hidden email])
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Steve Smith
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > Sent: 6/21/2009 5:51:13 PM
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Nick and dishonest behavior
> >
> >
> > I am way too animistic in my instincts to go for most of this.
> >
> > Eric said:
> >
> > Nick's ethical stance would be based on treating things that act in  
> > certain ways as equal to all other things that act in certain ways,  
> > and it wouldn't get much more prescriptive than that. The acts he  
> > would be interested in would be very sophisticated actions, or  
> > combination of actions - such as "contributing to the conversation".  
> >  This may seem strange, but again, it is really, really, really, not  
> >  that different from a stance that treats all things that  
> > "experience  in a certain way" as equal.
> >
> >
> > Yes, I abhor the killing of people (but can think of circumstances  
> > when I would endorse or practice it) and by extension abhor (or at  
> > least get really queasy at) the killing of things that look anything  
> >  like people.  Apes and Monkeys are obvious candidates for the  
> > not-kill.   Ditto for things that know how to mimic humans in any  
> > way... or have been selected for these traits (think most/all pets,  
> > many domesticated animals, etc.).   And add in the things that tweak  
> >  my  parent feeling (all creatures exhibiting neotony, big eyes,  
> > large head/body ratios, etc.).   Then add in the creatures who may  
> > not overtly (or recognizeably) remind me of humans (think Dolphins  
> > and other Cetaeceans... little gray creatures from UFO's, etc) that  
> > I intellectually (if not intuitively) ascribe intelligence and  
> > emotions.
> >
> > But I can feel the same way about cherished possessions or even  
> > coveted possessions of others.  Who hasn't gone to the dump and  
> > wanted to pull that "perfectly good armchair" out of the  pile of  
> > trash?   I am particularly a sucker for machinery, electronic or  
> > otherwise.   Just *try* to throw a "perfectly good"  
> > printer/computer/bicycle/chainsaw away in my presence.   I have a  
> > boatload (technically a parking-lot-full) of cars that I fell in  
> > love with and had to rescue... most of them 20+ years old... and  
> > once you rescue them, you can never abandon them, and you can't even  
> >  foster them out... after all, who is going to love them as much as  
> > you?   And yes, they all drive... though I'm not so sure about the  
> > old tech in my shed (computers, printers, etc.) but I suspect they  
> > do... why not?
> >
> > OK... I'm sure this is totally off-topic... excepting that I claim  
> > that we *project* so much onto inanimate (or barely animate or  
> > animate but barely/hardly human) objects that surely we do the same  
> > with people?  I don't trust people who claim they can determine my  
> > (or anyones) intentions by our actions... it is too fraught with the  
> >  risk of projection.   Half the never-ending hurt in this world  
> > seems  to come from our thinking we know what other people's  
> > intentions are  from their actions... and the other half seems to  
> > come from the  resulting feedback loop of revenge.
> >
> > - Steve
> >
> > PS... I think it is "OK" to kill Nick, but there are many, many  
> > reasons I do not.  Not the least of which is that I've become quite  
> > fond of him.   So don't anyone else try killing Nick to make the  
> > point, I would take it personally, project onto you my own ideas of  
> > your motivations and seek revenge based on that projection.  (OK...  
> > I know... I'm being disingenuous here...)
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> >

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> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Friam mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> >
> >
> > End of Friam Digest, Vol 72, Issue 26
> > *************************************
> >
>
>
>
> James R. Stalker, Ph.D.
> President & CEO (www.linkedin.com/in/precisionwindfounder)
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> ============================================================
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============================================================
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