do animals psychologize?

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Re: do animals psychologize?

Frank Wimberly-2
Frank confirms.  Here is a conversation between Nick and me that occurred at least ten years ago:

N. Hunger is eating or food-seeking behavior.

F. No, hunger is what I feel when I'm hungry.

Note:. Nick feels(!) that circularity is a Mortal Sin.


-----------------------------------
Frank Wimberly

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

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

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 4:10 PM Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi, Glen,

 

I realize I am about to make you grumpy and I HATE when I do that.  But ... I think (perhaps Frank will confirm) that I am a person who does not believe in qualia.  Let's see.  I will check my behavior and see.  OH, yes.  I have written:

 

Devil’s advocate: If feelings are something that one does, rather than something that one “has inside,” then the right sort of robot should be capable of feeling when it does the sorts of things that humans do when we say that humans are feeling something. Are you prepared to live with  that implication?

Sure.

Devil’s advocate: So a robot could be made that would feel pain?

Well, you are cheating a bit, because you are asking me to participate in a word game I have already disavowed, the game in which pain is something inside my brain that I use my pain-feelers to palpate (see also Natsoulas, this volume). To me, pain is an emergency organization of my behavior in which I deploy physical and social defenses of various sorts. You show me a robot that is part of a society of robots, becomes frantic when you break some part of it, calls upon its fellow robots to assist, etc., I will be happy to admit that it is “paining.”

Devil’s advocate: On your account, nonsocial animals don’t feel pain?

Well, not the same sort of pain. Any creature that struggles when you do something to it is “paining” in some sense. But animals that have the potential to summon help seem to pain in a different way.

Devil’s advocate: But, Nick, while “paining” sounds nice in an academic paper, it is just silly otherwise. The other day I felt quite nauseous after a meal. I am interested in what it’s    like to feel nauseous, and you

237


 

cannot honestly claim that you don’t know what feeling nauseous is like. Behavioral correlates aren’t at issue; stop changing the subject.

What is “being nauseous” like? It’s like being on a small boat in a choppy sea, it’s like being in a world that is revolving when others see it as stable, it’s like being gray in the face and turning away from the sights and smells of food that others find attractive, it’s like having your head in the toilet when others have theirs in the refrigerator.

But you have brought us to the crux of the problem. Nobody has ever been satisfied with my answers to these “What is it like to be a                ?” questions. “What is it like to be in pain? What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to be Nick Thompson?” Notice how the grammar is contorted. If you ask the question in its natural order, you begin to see a path to an answer. “What is being Nick Thompson like?” “It’s like running around like a chicken with its head cut off.” OK. I get that. I see me doing that. You see me doing that. But most people won’t be satisfied with that sort of answer, because it’s the same as the answer to the question, “What do people like Nick Thompson do?” and therefore appears to convey no information that is inherently private. To me, the question, “What is it like to be X?”, has been fully answered when you have said where X-like people can be found and what they will be doing there. However, I seem to be pretty alone in that view.

Devil’s advocate: Now I see why you annoy people. I ask you a perfectly straightforward question about the quality of an experience and you keep trying to saddle me with a description of a behavior. You just change the subject. You clearly understand me when I ask you about the quality of feeling nauseous, yet you answer like a person who doesn’t understand.

Well, here you just prove my point by refusing to believe me when I say that for me, feeling is a kind of doing, an exploring of the world. Where does somebody who believes that mental states are private, and that each person has privileged access to their own mental states, stand to deny me my account of my own mental states? You can’t have it both ways—you have run smack-dab into the ultimate foolishness of your position.

 

Gee.  I guess I don’t believe in qualia.

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 4:50 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

 

In an attempt to avoid a descent into arguing about the meanings of words, it seems reasonable enough to say that whatever plants may or may not feel, what they feel will result in wildly different qualia than what we experience.  Right?

 

So, we don't have to argue about whether plants feel pain.  We can argue about the extent of the similarity between plants' vs. animals' enteroception.

 

On 09/17/2018 01:37 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

> So, David,

>

> A tree, when assaulted by caterpillars, alters its physiology to produce toxins (at cost to its growth) and puts out chemicals to alert neighboring trees which do the same. 

>

> On what basis exactly do you assert that trees don't feel pain. 

>

> I stipulate that this question is asked by a person who doesn't think humans "feel pain".  There aren’t two steps, pain and the feeling of it.  

 

 

--

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Re: do animals psychologize?

gepr
In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
But, really, all you're doing is dickering about the definition.  It doesn't make me grumpy at all.  In fact, I can agree wholeheartedly with you and still believe in qualia, because what you describe *is* what the word means: self-perception. No amount of sophist-icated, hermeneutics will make it useful, here.

But what's physical and for which falsifiable hypotheses can be formulated is *how* plants sense and react versus how animals sense and react.  So, again, if we can talk about *that*, then we might make progress to whether or not non-human animals psychologize.

On 09/17/2018 03:09 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Gee.  I guess I don’t believe in qualia.


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Re: do animals psychologize?

Nick Thompson
Oh, Well, if that's how you understand qualia, we are blood brothers in this enterprise.  

But I don't think that's how others on this list -- indeed, most other people -- understand qualia.  

Let's see what they say.  Frank?  Bruce?  

David?  How do you understand qualia.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 6:36 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

But, really, all you're doing is dickering about the definition.  It doesn't make me grumpy at all.  In fact, I can agree wholeheartedly with you and still believe in qualia, because what you describe *is* what the word means: self-perception. No amount of sophist-icated, hermeneutics will make it useful, here.

But what's physical and for which falsifiable hypotheses can be formulated is *how* plants sense and react versus how animals sense and react.  So, again, if we can talk about *that*, then we might make progress to whether or not non-human animals psychologize.

On 09/17/2018 03:09 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Gee.  I guess I don’t believe in qualia.


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☣ uǝlƃ

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Re: do animals psychologize?

Nick Thompson
In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2

See larding. 

 

Thanks, Frank.

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 6:30 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

 

Frank confirms.  Here is a conversation between Nick and me that occurred at least ten years ago:

 

N. Hunger is eating or food-seeking behavior

[NST==>is the relation between food relevant circumstances and food related activities<==nst]

.

 

F. No, hunger is what I feel when I'm hungry.

 

Note:. Nick feels(!) that circularity is a Mortal Sin.

 

-----------------------------------
Frank Wimberly

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

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

Phone (505) 670-9918

 

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018, 4:10 PM Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi, Glen,

 

I realize I am about to make you grumpy and I HATE when I do that.  But ... I think (perhaps Frank will confirm) that I am a person who does not believe in qualia.  Let's see.  I will check my behavior and see.  OH, yes.  I have written:

 

Devil’s advocate: If feelings are something that one does, rather than something that one “has inside,” then the right sort of robot should be capable of feeling when it does the sorts of things that humans do when we say that humans are feeling something. Are you prepared to live with  that implication?

Sure.

Devil’s advocate: So a robot could be made that would feel pain?

Well, you are cheating a bit, because you are asking me to participate in a word game I have already disavowed, the game in which pain is something inside my brain that I use my pain-feelers to palpate (see also Natsoulas, this volume). To me, pain is an emergency organization of my behavior in which I deploy physical and social defenses of various sorts. You show me a robot that is part of a society of robots, becomes frantic when you break some part of it, calls upon its fellow robots to assist, etc., I will be happy to admit that it is “paining.”

Devil’s advocate: On your account, nonsocial animals don’t feel pain?

Well, not the same sort of pain. Any creature that struggles when you do something to it is “paining” in some sense. But animals that have the potential to summon help seem to pain in a different way.

Devil’s advocate: But, Nick, while “paining” sounds nice in an academic paper, it is just silly otherwise. The other day I felt quite nauseous after a meal. I am interested in what it’s    like to feel nauseous, and you

237


 

cannot honestly claim that you don’t know what feeling nauseous is like. Behavioral correlates aren’t at issue; stop changing the subject.

What is “being nauseous” like? It’s like being on a small boat in a choppy sea, it’s like being in a world that is revolving when others see it as stable, it’s like being gray in the face and turning away from the sights and smells of food that others find attractive, it’s like having your head in the toilet when others have theirs in the refrigerator.

But you have brought us to the crux of the problem. Nobody has ever been satisfied with my answers to these “What is it like to be a                ?” questions. “What is it like to be in pain? What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to be Nick Thompson?” Notice how the grammar is contorted. If you ask the question in its natural order, you begin to see a path to an answer. “What is being Nick Thompson like?” “It’s like running around like a chicken with its head cut off.” OK. I get that. I see me doing that. You see me doing that. But most people won’t be satisfied with that sort of answer, because it’s the same as the answer to the question, “What do people like Nick Thompson do?” and therefore appears to convey no information that is inherently private. To me, the question, “What is it like to be X?”, has been fully answered when you have said where X-like people can be found and what they will be doing there. However, I seem to be pretty alone in that view.

Devil’s advocate: Now I see why you annoy people. I ask you a perfectly straightforward question about the quality of an experience and you keep trying to saddle me with a description of a behavior. You just change the subject. You clearly understand me when I ask you about the quality of feeling nauseous, yet you answer like a person who doesn’t understand.

Well, here you just prove my point by refusing to believe me when I say that for me, feeling is a kind of doing, an exploring of the world. Where does somebody who believes that mental states are private, and that each person has privileged access to their own mental states, stand to deny me my account of my own mental states? You can’t have it both ways—you have run smack-dab into the ultimate foolishness of your position.

 

Gee.  I guess I don’t believe in qualia.

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 4:50 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

 

In an attempt to avoid a descent into arguing about the meanings of words, it seems reasonable enough to say that whatever plants may or may not feel, what they feel will result in wildly different qualia than what we experience.  Right?

 

So, we don't have to argue about whether plants feel pain.  We can argue about the extent of the similarity between plants' vs. animals' enteroception.

 

On 09/17/2018 01:37 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:

> So, David,

>

> A tree, when assaulted by caterpillars, alters its physiology to produce toxins (at cost to its growth) and puts out chemicals to alert neighboring trees which do the same. 

>

> On what basis exactly do you assert that trees don't feel pain. 

>

> I stipulate that this question is asked by a person who doesn't think humans "feel pain".  There aren’t two steps, pain and the feeling of it.  

 

 

--

uǝlƃ

 

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

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

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Re: do animals psychologize?

gepr
In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
Glutamate triggers long-distance, calcium-based plant defense signaling
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6407/1112

> Animals require rapid, long-range molecular signaling networks to integrate sensing and response throughout their bodies. The amino acid glutamate acts as an excitatory neurotransmitter in the vertebrate central nervous system, facilitating long-range information exchange via activation of glutamate receptor channels. Similarly, plants sense local signals, such as herbivore attack, and transmit this information throughout the plant body to rapidly activate defense responses in undamaged parts. Here we show that glutamate is a wound signal in plants. Ion channels of the GLUTAMATE RECEPTOR–LIKE family act as sensors that convert this signal into an increase in intracellular calcium ion concentration that propagates to distant organs, where defense responses are then induced.


On 09/17/2018 11:33 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-mimosa-plants-memory-01695.html
>
> On 9/17/18, 12:27 PM, "Friam on behalf of Prof David West" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:
>
>     [...]
>     I am watching plants move outside of my window. I doubt the plants are feeling pain, nor are they reacting to/ avoiding pain. True, most people don't eat pines, cedars, and manzanitas, and food plants, e.g. a potato, don't move much. But still, movement, even as an indicator or potential for feeling pain, seems less than useful.

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Re: do animals psychologize?

Marcus G. Daniels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_(2008_film)

On 9/18/18, 2:04 PM, "Friam on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:

    Glutamate triggers long-distance, calcium-based plant defense signaling
    http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6407/1112
   
    > Animals require rapid, long-range molecular signaling networks to integrate sensing and response throughout their bodies. The amino acid glutamate acts as an excitatory neurotransmitter in the vertebrate central nervous system, facilitating long-range information exchange via activation of glutamate receptor channels. Similarly, plants sense local signals, such as herbivore attack, and transmit this information throughout the plant body to rapidly activate defense responses in undamaged parts. Here we show that glutamate is a wound signal in plants. Ion channels of the GLUTAMATE RECEPTOR–LIKE family act as sensors that convert this signal into an increase in intracellular calcium ion concentration that propagates to distant organs, where defense responses are then induced.
   
   
    On 09/17/2018 11:33 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
    > http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-mimosa-plants-memory-01695.html
    >
    > On 9/17/18, 12:27 PM, "Friam on behalf of Prof David West" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:
    >
    >     [...]
    >     I am watching plants move outside of my window. I doubt the plants are feeling pain, nor are they reacting to/ avoiding pain. True, most people don't eat pines, cedars, and manzanitas, and food plants, e.g. a potato, don't move much. But still, movement, even as an indicator or potential for feeling pain, seems less than useful.
   
    --
    ☣ uǝlƃ
   
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Re: do animals psychologize?

gepr
So, I think I've landed on my opinion.  And I seriously hope it wasn't, in any part, because of The Happening. 8^)

If psychologizing is the inference to a partly unobservable, yet introspectable, internal state of another organism, then it requires the (≥2) organisms to have these features:

1) a systemic state like that glutamate/calcium messaging system that produces a (partly) observable behavior,

2) a self-perceptive structure that responds to that systemic state, and

3) an other-perceptive structure capable of perceiving others' behaviors and inferring/mapping to their own internal states.

It seems fairly clear that organisms with a CNS have (1) and (2).  And the memory and messaging in the 2 articles cited for plants demonstrate that at least some plants have (1).  And it seems fairly obvious that the more complex animals have (3) [†].  So, it makes the most sense to suggest that complex animals psychologize.  Where to draw the line is an issue, of course.  I doubt anyone would suggest that protozoa have (3), however powerful their (2) is with their dual nuclei or whatnot.  But I don't think we have much evidence that plants have (2). I'd be happy to be proven wrong. [‡]

It's also important to note that the inferences made in (3) need not be accurate.  The phrase "mind reading" goes beyond what I think is implied by "psychologizing" by requiring the inferred state be somewhat similar to the other organism's internal state.  So, my cat may well infer that I'm tossing that hackey sack around for the same reasons she tosses her mouse toy around.  And she may be completely wrong about that.  But she's still psychologizing.

[†] Humans and their ilk have many higher order self-measuring systems with at least 2 very abstracted "executives" in the head and gut ... systems measuring systems measuring systems, etc. But all that (I think) is required here is at least 1 higher order derivative, a plexus that observes the 0th order systemic state directly.

[‡] I can't help but wonder about distributed organisms like aspen groves or mycelia networks and their inter-species cooperation.  I also can't help but wonder how superorganisms might satisfy (1-3).

On 09/18/2018 01:32 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_(2008_film)

--
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Re: do animals psychologize?

Nick Thompson

Dear Glen,

 

I don’t think you comments below (see larding) take adequate account of the arguments found in my Many Perils of Ejective Anthropomorphism, where I try to understand what people mean by introspection and ultimately conclude that the whole idea is incoherent.  All perception is “other-perception” by definition.  This truism applies equally to organisms and computers:

 

 

And

 

 

 

And here, only a few days ago, we were blood brothers.

 

(};-)] 

 

By the way.  I am thinking of growing a beard.  It would look like: (};-)]> .  What do you think?  It makes my face look longer.

 

Nick   

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ? u???
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 12:08 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

 

So, I think I've landed on my opinion.  And I seriously hope it wasn't, in any part, because of The Happening. 8^)

 

If psychologizing is the inference to a partly unobservable, yet introspectable, internal state of another organism, then it requires the (≥2) organisms to have these features:

[NST==>I cannot grasp what is meant by “partly unobservable”  All observations are partial in the sense that we cannot see all sides of a thing at once.  Also, I cannot make any sense of the term “internal” except by reference to the aforementioned concept of “unobservability”.  <==nst]

 

1) a systemic state like that glutamate/calcium messaging system that produces a (partly) observable behavior,

 

2) a self-perceptive structure that responds to that systemic state, and[NST==>It’s not “self-perceptive” by definition.  See text above.  <==nst]  

 

3) an other-perceptive structure capable of perceiving others' behaviors and inferring/mapping to their own internal states.

 

It seems fairly clear that organisms with a CNS have (1) and (2).  And the memory and messaging in the 2 articles cited for plants demonstrate that at least some plants have (1).  And it seems fairly obvious that the more complex animals have (3) [†].  So, it makes the most sense to suggest that complex animals psychologize.  Where to draw the line is an issue, of course.  I doubt anyone would suggest that protozoa have (3), however powerful their (2) is with their dual nuclei or whatnot.  But I don't think we have much evidence that plants have (2). I'd be happy to be proven wrong. [‡]

 

It's also important to note that the inferences made in (3) need not be accurate.  The phrase "mind reading" goes beyond what I think is implied by "psychologizing" by requiring the inferred state be somewhat similar to the other organism's internal state.  So, my cat may well infer that I'm tossing that hackey sack around for the same reasons she tosses her mouse toy around.  And she may be completely wrong about that.  But she's still psychologizing.

 

[†] Humans and their ilk have many higher order self-measuring systems with at least 2 very abstracted "executives" in the head and gut ... systems measuring systems measuring systems, etc. But all that (I think) is required here is at least 1 higher order derivative, a plexus that observes the 0th order systemic state directly.

 

[‡] I can't help but wonder about distributed organisms like aspen groves or mycelia networks and their inter-species cooperation.  I also can't help but wonder how superorganisms might satisfy (1-3).

 

On 09/18/2018 01:32 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_(2008_film)

 

--

uǝʃƃ

 

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Re: do animals psychologize?

gepr
On 09/19/2018 10:25 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> I don’t think you comments below (see larding) take adequate account of the arguments found in my /Many Perils of Ejective Anthropomorphism <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311349078_The_many_perils_of_ejective_anthropomorphism>, /where I try to understand what people mean by introspection and ultimately conclude that the whole idea is incoherent.  All perception is “other-perception” by definition.  This truism applies equally to organisms and computers:

[sigh]  OK.  I'll restate without the controversial word "introspection".

If psychologizing is the inference to a partly unobservable, yet self-measurable, internal state of another organism, then it requires the (≥2) organisms to have these features:

1) a systemic state like that glutamate/calcium messaging system that produces a (partly) observable behavior,

2) a self-perceptive structure that responds to that systemic state, and

3) an other-perceptive structure capable of perceiving others' behaviors and inferring/mapping to their own internal states.

By "self-measurable", I mean things like grabbing your elbow with your other hand ... or poking yourself in the eye.  No magical psychological terms are needed. 8^) And I totally accept your "all perception is 'other-perception'"; and this formulation allows that because it is one PART measuring anOTHER part.


> And here, only a few days ago, we were blood brothers.  (};-)]

Heh, you don't want to mix with my immortal lymphocytes with their mutated sequences!

> By the way.  I am thinking of growing a beard.  It would look like: (};-)]> .  What do you think?  It makes my face look longer.

Everyone who has working follicles, wherever they *are* should allow those follicles to express themselves.  So, grow 'em if you got 'em!  At my 20 year high school reunion (remember I'm from Texas), several of the people who thought we were friends yet I hadn't spoken to in ... 20 years ... remarked on my bald head and fairly long "mullet".  One guy asked "So, what's with the hair?"  My response was the same as the above.  You fascists trying to *groom* your poor hair with arbitrary snips and clips are embarrassing those of us who are comfortable flying our freak flag(s).

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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Re: do animals psychologize?

Frank Wimberly-2
In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
Dear Nick,

In the vein of  "speak truth to power":

I have demonstrated my private access to my own mind but pointing out that you can't tell me what I am thinking.  You didn't respond, as I recall.

Introspection exists.  I have read what you wrote carefully.

On a less serious note, your beard plan is interesting.  Have you wondered if you're inspired by Freud?  He believed in introspection.

Frank

On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 11:26 AM Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear Glen,

 

I don’t think you comments below (see larding) take adequate account of the arguments found in my Many Perils of Ejective Anthropomorphism, where I try to understand what people mean by introspection and ultimately conclude that the whole idea is incoherent.  All perception is “other-perception” by definition.  This truism applies equally to organisms and computers:

 

 

And

 

 

 

And here, only a few days ago, we were blood brothers.

 

(};-)] 

 

By the way.  I am thinking of growing a beard.  It would look like: (};-)]> .  What do you think?  It makes my face look longer.

 

Nick   

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ? u???
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 12:08 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

 

So, I think I've landed on my opinion.  And I seriously hope it wasn't, in any part, because of The Happening. 8^)

 

If psychologizing is the inference to a partly unobservable, yet introspectable, internal state of another organism, then it requires the (≥2) organisms to have these features:

[NST==>I cannot grasp what is meant by “partly unobservable”  All observations are partial in the sense that we cannot see all sides of a thing at once.  Also, I cannot make any sense of the term “internal” except by reference to the aforementioned concept of “unobservability”.  <==nst]

 

1) a systemic state like that glutamate/calcium messaging system that produces a (partly) observable behavior,

 

2) a self-perceptive structure that responds to that systemic state, and[NST==>It’s not “self-perceptive” by definition.  See text above.  <==nst]  

 

3) an other-perceptive structure capable of perceiving others' behaviors and inferring/mapping to their own internal states.

 

It seems fairly clear that organisms with a CNS have (1) and (2).  And the memory and messaging in the 2 articles cited for plants demonstrate that at least some plants have (1).  And it seems fairly obvious that the more complex animals have (3) [†].  So, it makes the most sense to suggest that complex animals psychologize.  Where to draw the line is an issue, of course.  I doubt anyone would suggest that protozoa have (3), however powerful their (2) is with their dual nuclei or whatnot.  But I don't think we have much evidence that plants have (2). I'd be happy to be proven wrong. [‡]

 

It's also important to note that the inferences made in (3) need not be accurate.  The phrase "mind reading" goes beyond what I think is implied by "psychologizing" by requiring the inferred state be somewhat similar to the other organism's internal state.  So, my cat may well infer that I'm tossing that hackey sack around for the same reasons she tosses her mouse toy around.  And she may be completely wrong about that.  But she's still psychologizing.

 

[†] Humans and their ilk have many higher order self-measuring systems with at least 2 very abstracted "executives" in the head and gut ... systems measuring systems measuring systems, etc. But all that (I think) is required here is at least 1 higher order derivative, a plexus that observes the 0th order systemic state directly.

 

[‡] I can't help but wonder about distributed organisms like aspen groves or mycelia networks and their inter-species cooperation.  I also can't help but wonder how superorganisms might satisfy (1-3).

 

On 09/18/2018 01:32 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_(2008_film)

 

--

uǝʃƃ

 

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

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Re: do animals psychologize?

Nick Thompson

Yes.  I stipulate that I cannot say what you are thinking now. But that fact is not dispositive. I also cannot say what color shirt you are wearing, and yet you would agree that that latter fact is a public fact.  Your position HAS to be, that I could never IN PRINCIPLE know what you are thinking now.  And that, I will not stipulate.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 2:05 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

 

Dear Nick,

 

In the vein of  "speak truth to power":

 

I have demonstrated my private access to my own mind but pointing out that you can't tell me what I am thinking.  You didn't respond, as I recall.

 

Introspection exists.  I have read what you wrote carefully.

 

On a less serious note, your beard plan is interesting.  Have you wondered if you're inspired by Freud?  He believed in introspection.

 

Frank

 

On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 11:26 AM Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Dear Glen,

 

I don’t think you comments below (see larding) take adequate account of the arguments found in my Many Perils of Ejective Anthropomorphism, where I try to understand what people mean by introspection and ultimately conclude that the whole idea is incoherent.  All perception is “other-perception” by definition.  This truism applies equally to organisms and computers:

 

 

And

 

 

 

And here, only a few days ago, we were blood brothers.

 

(};-)] 

 

By the way.  I am thinking of growing a beard.  It would look like: (};-)]> .  What do you think?  It makes my face look longer.

 

Nick   

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ? u???
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 12:08 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

 

So, I think I've landed on my opinion.  And I seriously hope it wasn't, in any part, because of The Happening. 8^)

 

If psychologizing is the inference to a partly unobservable, yet introspectable, internal state of another organism, then it requires the (≥2) organisms to have these features:

[NST==>I cannot grasp what is meant by “partly unobservable”  All observations are partial in the sense that we cannot see all sides of a thing at once.  Also, I cannot make any sense of the term “internal” except by reference to the aforementioned concept of “unobservability”.  <==nst]

 

1) a systemic state like that glutamate/calcium messaging system that produces a (partly) observable behavior,

 

2) a self-perceptive structure that responds to that systemic state, and[NST==>It’s not “self-perceptive” by definition.  See text above.  <==nst]  

 

3) an other-perceptive structure capable of perceiving others' behaviors and inferring/mapping to their own internal states.

 

It seems fairly clear that organisms with a CNS have (1) and (2).  And the memory and messaging in the 2 articles cited for plants demonstrate that at least some plants have (1).  And it seems fairly obvious that the more complex animals have (3) [†].  So, it makes the most sense to suggest that complex animals psychologize.  Where to draw the line is an issue, of course.  I doubt anyone would suggest that protozoa have (3), however powerful their (2) is with their dual nuclei or whatnot.  But I don't think we have much evidence that plants have (2). I'd be happy to be proven wrong. [‡]

 

It's also important to note that the inferences made in (3) need not be accurate.  The phrase "mind reading" goes beyond what I think is implied by "psychologizing" by requiring the inferred state be somewhat similar to the other organism's internal state.  So, my cat may well infer that I'm tossing that hackey sack around for the same reasons she tosses her mouse toy around.  And she may be completely wrong about that.  But she's still psychologizing.

 

[†] Humans and their ilk have many higher order self-measuring systems with at least 2 very abstracted "executives" in the head and gut ... systems measuring systems measuring systems, etc. But all that (I think) is required here is at least 1 higher order derivative, a plexus that observes the 0th order systemic state directly.

 

[‡] I can't help but wonder about distributed organisms like aspen groves or mycelia networks and their inter-species cooperation.  I also can't help but wonder how superorganisms might satisfy (1-3).

 

On 09/18/2018 01:32 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_(2008_film)

 

--

uǝʃƃ

 

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--

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


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Re: do animals psychologize?

Nick Thompson
In reply to this post by gepr

Glen,

 

When my wife discovers that I am NOT in here packing up for our flight to SF, there will be hell to pay.

 

But ....

 

You write:

By "self-measurable", I mean things like grabbing your elbow with your other hand ... or poking yourself in the eye.  No magical psychological terms are needed. 8^) And I totally accept your "all perception is 'other-perception'"; and this formulation allows that because it is one PART measuring anOTHER part.

Au contraire! This is totally magical, but still very interesting.  I suggest that you conduct the following series of experiences.

 

(1)    With the pad of your right index finger, feel the surface of your desk.

(2)    With the pad of your right index finger, feel the hair on your other arm.

(3)    With the pad of your right index finger, feel the palm of your left hand.

(4)    With the pad of your right index finger, feel the pad of your left index finger.

(5)    Now, without changing the motions you are making, feel the pad of your right index finger with the pad of your left. 

(};-o]>

 

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 1:53 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

 

On 09/19/2018 10:25 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

> I don’t think you comments below (see larding) take adequate account of the arguments found in my /Many Perils of Ejective Anthropomorphism <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311349078_The_many_perils_of_ejective_anthropomorphism>, /where I try to understand what people mean by introspection and ultimately conclude that the whole idea is incoherent.  All perception is “other-perception” by definition.  This truism applies equally to organisms and computers:

 

[sigh]  OK.  I'll restate without the controversial word "introspection".

 

If psychologizing is the inference to a partly unobservable, yet self-measurable, internal state of another organism, then it requires the (≥2) organisms to have these features:

 

1) a systemic state like that glutamate/calcium messaging system that produces a (partly) observable behavior,

 

2) a self-perceptive structure that responds to that systemic state, and

 

3) an other-perceptive structure capable of perceiving others' behaviors and inferring/mapping to their own internal states.

 

By "self-measurable", I mean things like grabbing your elbow with your other hand ... or poking yourself in the eye.  No magical psychological terms are needed. 8^) And I totally accept your "all perception is 'other-perception'"; and this formulation allows that because it is one PART measuring anOTHER part.

 

 

> And here, only a few days ago, we were blood brothers.  (};-)]

 

Heh, you don't want to mix with my immortal lymphocytes with their mutated sequences!

 

> By the way.  I am thinking of growing a beard.  It would look like: (};-)]> .  What do you think?  It makes my face look longer.

 

Everyone who has working follicles, wherever they *are* should allow those follicles to express themselves.  So, grow 'em if you got 'em!  At my 20 year high school reunion (remember I'm from Texas), several of the people who thought we were friends yet I hadn't spoken to in ... 20 years ... remarked on my bald head and fairly long "mullet".  One guy asked "So, what's with the hair?"  My response was the same as the above.  You fascists trying to *groom* your poor hair with arbitrary snips and clips are embarrassing those of us who are comfortable flying our freak flag(s).

 

--

uǝlƃ

 

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

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Re: do animals psychologize?

gepr
I've failed to understand how that changes anything I wrote or how it might change my opinion that animals (but not plants) psychologize.  Can you elaborate how your experiment is supposed to change my opinion?

On 09/19/2018 11:51 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

> /Au contraire! /This is totally magical, but still very interesting.  I suggest that you conduct the following series of experiences.
>
> */(1)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the surface of your desk./*
>
> */(2)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the hair on your other arm./*
>
> */(3)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the palm of your left hand./*
>
> */(4)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the pad of your left index finger./*
>
> */(5)    /**/Now, without changing the motions you are making, feel the pad of your right index finger with the pad of your left.  /*

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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Re: do animals psychologize?

Nick Thompson

Fair enough.

 

Not sure it will.  You wrote:

 

 

No magical psychological terms are needed. 8^) And I totally accept your "all perception is 'other-perception'"; and this formulation allows that because it is one PART measuring anOTHER part.

 

I was hoping to demonstrate to you that the notion of “feeling” is entirely mysterious.  But mostly I was hoping that you and others would try the experiment and report back to me.  Whenever I do it, the effect is always bizarre.  When the experiment is over, I find it difficult to parse the sentence, “Jones felt X.” 

 

Look!  About this sort of thing, I don’t hope to convince anybody, only to worry them as much as I am worried:  BUT: I guess I think that all interpsychic talk is incoherent because psyches are just relations between organisms and objects and all intrapsychic talk is metaphorical at best and metaphysical at worst.  One might question whether I should be bothing your and our colleagues with such ill formed reflections, but I guess I think that that is precisely what FRIAM is FOR.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 2:55 PM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

 

I've failed to understand how that changes anything I wrote or how it might change my opinion that animals (but not plants) psychologize.  Can you elaborate how your experiment is supposed to change my opinion?

 

On 09/19/2018 11:51 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

> /Au contraire! /This is totally magical, but still very interesting.  I suggest that you conduct the following series of experiences.

>

> */(1)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the surface

> of your desk./*

>

> */(2)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the hair on

> your other arm./*

>

> */(3)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the palm of

> your left hand./*

>

> */(4)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the pad of

> your left index finger./*

>

> */(5)    /**/Now, without changing the motions you are making, feel

> the pad of your right index finger with the pad of your left.  /*

 

--

uǝlƃ

 

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Re: do animals psychologize?

gepr
Hm. Well, steelmanning as best I can, you may be arguing that the left and right fingers cannot measure independently and that some data fusion must happen. If that's the case, then simultaneous measures might demonstrate that.

But, when I was a child I scarred my right index finger so that when I touch the right and left pads, they measure quite different things. And I can distinguish. You might even be able to invoke the bicameral brain if necessary.

Does that change anything?


On September 19, 2018 12:36:55 PM PDT, Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

>Fair enough.
>
>
>
>Not sure it will.  You wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>No magical psychological terms are needed. 8^) And I totally accept
>your "all perception is 'other-perception'"; and this formulation
>allows that because it is one PART measuring anOTHER part.
>
>
>
>I was hoping to demonstrate to you that the notion of “feeling” is
>entirely mysterious.  But mostly I was hoping that you and others would
>try the experiment and report back to me.  Whenever I do it, the effect
>is always bizarre.  When the experiment is over, I find it difficult to
>parse the sentence, “Jones felt X.”  
>
>
>
>Look!  About this sort of thing, I don’t hope to convince anybody, only
>to worry them as much as I am worried:  BUT: I guess I think that all
>interpsychic talk is incoherent because psyches are just relations
>between organisms and objects and all intrapsychic talk is metaphorical
>at best and metaphysical at worst.  One might question whether I should
>be bothing your and our colleagues with such ill formed reflections,
>but I guess I think that that is precisely what FRIAM is FOR.
>
>
>
>Nick
>
>
>
>Nicholas S. Thompson
>
>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
>Clark University
>
>http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
>Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 2:55 PM
>To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?
>
>
>
>I've failed to understand how that changes anything I wrote or how it
>might change my opinion that animals (but not plants) psychologize.
>Can you elaborate how your experiment is supposed to change my opinion?
>
>
>
>On 09/19/2018 11:51 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>
>> /Au contraire! /This is totally magical, but still very interesting.
>I suggest that you conduct the following series of experiences.
>
>>
>
>> */(1)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the
>surface
>
>> of your desk./*
>
>>
>
>> */(2)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the hair
>on
>
>> your other arm./*
>
>>
>
>> */(3)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the palm
>of
>
>> your left hand./*
>
>>
>
>> */(4)    /**/With the pad of your right index finger, feel the pad of
>
>
>> your left index finger./*
>
>>
>
>> */(5)    /**/Now, without changing the motions you are making, feel
>
>> the pad of your right index finger with the pad of your left.  /*
>
>
>
>--
>
>☣ uǝlƃ
>
>
>
>============================================================
>
>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
>Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
><http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com>
>http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>
>FRIAM-COMIC  <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/>
>http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

--
glen

============================================================
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Re: do animals psychologize?

Nick Thompson
In reply to this post by Prof David West
David,

Well, unshared ontologies SOME of the time.  It's the inconsistency -- in myself and others -- that drives me bonkers.

Great to hear from you.  I am returning to SF a week from Saturday.  Where are you?

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 3:10 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

Nick, what was the cat dosing with, LSD? (just being a smart-a__)

Perhaps people provide a psychological question with a physiological answer for the same reason you reply to a consciousness question with a behavioral answer? Unshared ontologies?

davew

On Mon, Sep 17, 2018, at 1:08 PM, David West wrote:

> Nick, what was the cat dosing with, LSD? (just being a smart-a__)
>
> Perhaps people provide a psychological question with a physiological
> answer for the same reason you replay to a consciousness question with
> a behavioral answer?
>
> davew
>
> On Mon, Sep 17, 2018, at 12:59 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> > Marcus,
> >
> > I have never understood how it comes to be that people answer a
> > psychological question with a physiological answer.  I, of course,
> > share your belief that all psychological functions are physiologically (or
> > electronically) mediated.   Still, for instance, it would seem odd to
> > me, if I asked a person if an animal can calculate the square root
> > of three, for that person to answer, "That animal does not have the
> > sort of brain that can calculate the square root of three".  The
> > natural course of argument would seem for me for the person to
> > answer the question about the calculation activities of the animal
> > and THEN go on, perhaps, to explain that answer in terms of the
> > physiological limitations of the animal's brain.
> >
> > We once had a famously smart cat.  One day we were watching TV and a
> > cat came on.  Our cat roused itself from dosing on the rug, went
> > over and looked behind the tv, came back to the rug, looked at the
> > TV, looked at us disgustedly, and lay down on the rug with its back to the TV.  It
> > never roused to a cat on the TV again.   No cat would be dumb enough to
> > be fooled by pornography.   I don't know what that proves about the
> > question at hand, but I love cat stories.
> >
> > Nick
> >
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus
> > Daniels
> > Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 1:53 PM
> > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> > <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?
> >
> > I would say this relates to the reality (or not) of first-world
> > problems.   Humans that thrive in the first world must form (or be
> > educated to acquire) higher-order representations.    Psychologizing is
> > one process that leads to higher-order representations.    In an
> > artificial deep neural network, the neurons in the higher layers
> > represent more and more abstract interpretations of inputs that have
> > be presented, but it can take hundreds of thousands of neurons and
> > dozens of layers.
> >
> > One might imagine pets that have fewer neurons and less connectivity
> > amongst neurons could still develop higher-level representations
> > provided that these adaptations did not interfere with other
> > essential information processing functions -- keeping in mind the
> > most important function for a pet is probably anticipating the
> > meaning of human signals.
> >
> > Anyway, we'll make great pets.
> >
> > Marcus
> >
> > On 9/17/18, 11:30 AM, "Friam on behalf of Nick Thompson" <friam-
> > [hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> >     Yes, Glen and Marcus.  Very interesting.
> >    
> >     But, "Do animals psychologize?"
> >    
> >     N
> >    
> >     Nicholas S. Thompson
> >     Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
> >     Clark University
> >     http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> >    
> >     -----Original Message-----
> >     From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
> >     Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 10:57 AM
> >     To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
> >     Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?
> >    
> >      Glen writes:
> >      
> >     "Even in your example, we might notice that even though there are N licenses
> >     doled out, the deer population continues to rise.  It would be
> >     over-intervention to simply issue more licenses. Perhaps the people getting
> >     the licenses are mostly an aging population who don't hunt much anymore but
> >     have some semi-automated approach to getting a license?"
> >    
> >     A population estimation input comes from tagging stations relative to issued
> >     licenses by category of deer, so they can & do close-the-loop by way of
> >     enforcement.  
> >     The population estimation techniques require some assumptions, of course.  
> >    
> >     Marcus
> >    
> >     ============================================================
> >     FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> >     Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
> >     http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> >     FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> >    
> >    
> >     ============================================================
> >     FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> >     Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> >     to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> >     FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> >    
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at
> > cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
> > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at
> > cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
> > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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Re: do animals psychologize?

Nick Thompson
In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
Marcus,

But doesn't psychology supervene upon physiology.  I.e., aren't there an infinite number of ways to physiologically skin the psychological cat?  

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 3:23 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

I wasn't making a hypothesis about type, I was making one about degree -- that unless a computing system has some number of functional units and a certain degree of connection between those functional units, some representations and calculations on those representations won't be practical.    A predator may (in effect) have very high-speed square root operations as it relates to predatory pursuit motor skills, but no abstract representation of what a number is.   The particular behaviors of individual functional units seem to be what you are calling physiology.   I'm speculating that if one has a reasonable model of the functional units, then one can build artificial neural systems from that component model, and from those, estimate what different species could calculate.   Can a certain neural net of some size learn an arbitrary distribution of some dimensionality?

On 9/17/18, 1:01 PM, "Friam on behalf of Nick Thompson" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:

    Marcus,
   
    I have never understood how it comes to be that people answer a psychological question with a physiological answer.  I, of course, share your belief that all psychological functions are physiologically (or electronically) mediated.   Still, for instance, it would seem odd to me, if I asked a person if an animal can calculate the square root of three, for that person to answer, "That animal does not have the sort of brain that can calculate the square root of three".  The natural course of argument would seem for me for the person to answer the question about the calculation activities of the animal and THEN go on, perhaps, to explain that answer in terms of the physiological limitations of the animal's brain.  
   
    We once had a famously smart cat.  One day we were watching TV and a cat came on.  Our cat roused itself from dosing on the rug, went over and looked behind the tv, came back to the rug, looked at the TV, looked at us disgustedly, and lay down on the rug with its back to the TV.  It never roused to a cat on the TV again.   No cat would be dumb enough to be fooled by pornography.   I don't know what that proves about the question at hand, but I love cat stories.
   
    Nick
   
    Nicholas S. Thompson
    Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
    Clark University
    http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
   
   
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
    Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 1:53 PM
    To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
    Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?
   
    I would say this relates to the reality (or not) of first-world problems.   Humans that thrive in the first world must form (or be educated to acquire) higher-order representations.    Psychologizing is one process that leads to higher-order representations.    In an artificial deep neural network, the neurons in the higher layers represent more and more abstract interpretations of inputs that have be presented, but it can take hundreds of thousands of neurons and dozens of layers.  
   
    One might imagine pets that have fewer neurons and less connectivity amongst neurons could still develop higher-level representations provided that these adaptations did not interfere with other essential information processing functions -- keeping in mind the most important function for a pet is probably anticipating the meaning of human signals.  
   
    Anyway, we'll make great pets.
   
    Marcus
   
    On 9/17/18, 11:30 AM, "Friam on behalf of Nick Thompson" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:
   
        Yes, Glen and Marcus.  Very interesting.
       
        But, "Do animals psychologize?"
       
        N
       
        Nicholas S. Thompson
        Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
        Clark University
        http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
       
        -----Original Message-----
        From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
        Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 10:57 AM
        To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
        Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?
       
         Glen writes:
         
        "Even in your example, we might notice that even though there are N licenses
        doled out, the deer population continues to rise.  It would be
        over-intervention to simply issue more licenses. Perhaps the people getting
        the licenses are mostly an aging population who don't hunt much anymore but
        have some semi-automated approach to getting a license?"
       
        A population estimation input comes from tagging stations relative to issued
        licenses by category of deer, so they can & do close-the-loop by way of
        enforcement.  
        The population estimation techniques require some assumptions, of course.  
       
        Marcus
       
        ============================================================
        FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
        Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
        http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
        FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
       
       
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        Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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    Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: do animals psychologize?

Marcus G. Daniels
If I cared about skinning the psychological cat.  I'm more interested in what could be implemented with the hardware than what happens to be.

On 9/19/18, 2:41 PM, "Friam on behalf of Nick Thompson" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:

    Marcus,
   
    But doesn't psychology supervene upon physiology.  I.e., aren't there an infinite number of ways to physiologically skin the psychological cat?  
   
    Nick
   
    Nicholas S. Thompson
    Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
    Clark University
    http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
   
   
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
    Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 3:23 PM
    To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
    Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?
   
    I wasn't making a hypothesis about type, I was making one about degree -- that unless a computing system has some number of functional units and a certain degree of connection between those functional units, some representations and calculations on those representations won't be practical.    A predator may (in effect) have very high-speed square root operations as it relates to predatory pursuit motor skills, but no abstract representation of what a number is.   The particular behaviors of individual functional units seem to be what you are calling physiology.   I'm speculating that if one has a reasonable model of the functional units, then one can build artificial neural systems from that component model, and from those, estimate what different species could calculate.   Can a certain neural net of some size learn an arbitrary distribution of some dimensionality?
   
    On 9/17/18, 1:01 PM, "Friam on behalf of Nick Thompson" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:
   
        Marcus,
       
        I have never understood how it comes to be that people answer a psychological question with a physiological answer.  I, of course, share your belief that all psychological functions are physiologically (or electronically) mediated.   Still, for instance, it would seem odd to me, if I asked a person if an animal can calculate the square root of three, for that person to answer, "That animal does not have the sort of brain that can calculate the square root of three".  The natural course of argument would seem for me for the person to answer the question about the calculation activities of the animal and THEN go on, perhaps, to explain that answer in terms of the physiological limitations of the animal's brain.  
       
        We once had a famously smart cat.  One day we were watching TV and a cat came on.  Our cat roused itself from dosing on the rug, went over and looked behind the tv, came back to the rug, looked at the TV, looked at us disgustedly, and lay down on the rug with its back to the TV.  It never roused to a cat on the TV again.   No cat would be dumb enough to be fooled by pornography.   I don't know what that proves about the question at hand, but I love cat stories.
       
        Nick
       
        Nicholas S. Thompson
        Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
        Clark University
        http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
       
       
        -----Original Message-----
        From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
        Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 1:53 PM
        To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
        Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?
       
        I would say this relates to the reality (or not) of first-world problems.   Humans that thrive in the first world must form (or be educated to acquire) higher-order representations.    Psychologizing is one process that leads to higher-order representations.    In an artificial deep neural network, the neurons in the higher layers represent more and more abstract interpretations of inputs that have be presented, but it can take hundreds of thousands of neurons and dozens of layers.  
       
        One might imagine pets that have fewer neurons and less connectivity amongst neurons could still develop higher-level representations provided that these adaptations did not interfere with other essential information processing functions -- keeping in mind the most important function for a pet is probably anticipating the meaning of human signals.  
       
        Anyway, we'll make great pets.
       
        Marcus
       
        On 9/17/18, 11:30 AM, "Friam on behalf of Nick Thompson" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:
       
            Yes, Glen and Marcus.  Very interesting.
           
            But, "Do animals psychologize?"
           
            N
           
            Nicholas S. Thompson
            Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
            Clark University
            http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
           
            -----Original Message-----
            From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
            Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 10:57 AM
            To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
            Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?
           
             Glen writes:
             
            "Even in your example, we might notice that even though there are N licenses
            doled out, the deer population continues to rise.  It would be
            over-intervention to simply issue more licenses. Perhaps the people getting
            the licenses are mostly an aging population who don't hunt much anymore but
            have some semi-automated approach to getting a license?"
           
            A population estimation input comes from tagging stations relative to issued
            licenses by category of deer, so they can & do close-the-loop by way of
            enforcement.  
            The population estimation techniques require some assumptions, of course.  
           
            Marcus
           
            ============================================================
            FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
            Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
            http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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            Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Re: do animals psychologize?

Nick Thompson
You want to make novel cats, right?

N

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 4:44 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

If I cared about skinning the psychological cat.  I'm more interested in what could be implemented with the hardware than what happens to be.

On 9/19/18, 2:41 PM, "Friam on behalf of Nick Thompson" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:

    Marcus,
   
    But doesn't psychology supervene upon physiology.  I.e., aren't there an infinite number of ways to physiologically skin the psychological cat?  
   
    Nick
   
    Nicholas S. Thompson
    Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
    Clark University
    http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
   
   
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
    Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 3:23 PM
    To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
    Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?
   
    I wasn't making a hypothesis about type, I was making one about degree -- that unless a computing system has some number of functional units and a certain degree of connection between those functional units, some representations and calculations on those representations won't be practical.    A predator may (in effect) have very high-speed square root operations as it relates to predatory pursuit motor skills, but no abstract representation of what a number is.   The particular behaviors of individual functional units seem to be what you are calling physiology.   I'm speculating that if one has a reasonable model of the functional units, then one can build artificial neural systems from that component model, and from those, estimate what different species could calculate.   Can a certain neural net of some size learn an arbitrary distribution of some dimensionality?
   
    On 9/17/18, 1:01 PM, "Friam on behalf of Nick Thompson" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:
   
        Marcus,
       
        I have never understood how it comes to be that people answer a psychological question with a physiological answer.  I, of course, share your belief that all psychological functions are physiologically (or electronically) mediated.   Still, for instance, it would seem odd to me, if I asked a person if an animal can calculate the square root of three, for that person to answer, "That animal does not have the sort of brain that can calculate the square root of three".  The natural course of argument would seem for me for the person to answer the question about the calculation activities of the animal and THEN go on, perhaps, to explain that answer in terms of the physiological limitations of the animal's brain.  
       
        We once had a famously smart cat.  One day we were watching TV and a cat came on.  Our cat roused itself from dosing on the rug, went over and looked behind the tv, came back to the rug, looked at the TV, looked at us disgustedly, and lay down on the rug with its back to the TV.  It never roused to a cat on the TV again.   No cat would be dumb enough to be fooled by pornography.   I don't know what that proves about the question at hand, but I love cat stories.
       
        Nick
       
        Nicholas S. Thompson
        Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
        Clark University
        http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
       
       
        -----Original Message-----
        From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
        Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 1:53 PM
        To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
        Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?
       
        I would say this relates to the reality (or not) of first-world problems.   Humans that thrive in the first world must form (or be educated to acquire) higher-order representations.    Psychologizing is one process that leads to higher-order representations.    In an artificial deep neural network, the neurons in the higher layers represent more and more abstract interpretations of inputs that have be presented, but it can take hundreds of thousands of neurons and dozens of layers.  
       
        One might imagine pets that have fewer neurons and less connectivity amongst neurons could still develop higher-level representations provided that these adaptations did not interfere with other essential information processing functions -- keeping in mind the most important function for a pet is probably anticipating the meaning of human signals.  
       
        Anyway, we'll make great pets.
       
        Marcus
       
        On 9/17/18, 11:30 AM, "Friam on behalf of Nick Thompson" <[hidden email] on behalf of [hidden email]> wrote:
       
            Yes, Glen and Marcus.  Very interesting.
           
            But, "Do animals psychologize?"
           
            N
           
            Nicholas S. Thompson
            Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
            Clark University
            http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
           
            -----Original Message-----
            From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
            Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 10:57 AM
            To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
            Subject: Re: [FRIAM] do animals psychologize?
           
             Glen writes:
             
            "Even in your example, we might notice that even though there are N licenses
            doled out, the deer population continues to rise.  It would be
            over-intervention to simply issue more licenses. Perhaps the people getting
            the licenses are mostly an aging population who don't hunt much anymore but
            have some semi-automated approach to getting a license?"
           
            A population estimation input comes from tagging stations relative to issued
            licenses by category of deer, so they can & do close-the-loop by way of
            enforcement.  
            The population estimation techniques require some assumptions, of course.  
           
            Marcus
           
            ============================================================
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Re: do animals psychologize?

Marcus G. Daniels
In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels

A couple articles in this week’s Science relating to the programmability of cells.

 

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6408/eaap8987

 

“This enables the design of cycles and developmental networks for engineering applications that require that cells exist in a particular state for an unspecified amount of time. For example, therapeutic cells could be built to sense transient stimuli, such as throughout the gastrointestinal tract, and switch to a new state when the next signal is encountered. There are similar applications for diagnostic cells (48, 7681), pathways to complex chemicals and materials that require cycles of ordered operations (82), and sentinel plants and microbes with responsive traits (31, 83, 84).”

 

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6408/1252

 

For example, existing cancer-detection circuits (66, 67) could conditionally express CHOMP components to increase specificity and couple to protein-mediated inputs and outputs. Integrating these capabilities, one can envision smart therapeutics or sentinels based on CHOMP circuits (68, 69).”

 

And those are the just some of the friendly applications.

 

Marcus


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