Re: Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd person

Posted by Eric Charles on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Re-Direct-conversation-tp3137870p3150746.html

My understanding is that the terms 1st and 3rd person arose as ways of talking about literary styles - and our use of them is metaphorical. An essential part of the metaphor is that authors writing in 1st person are typically granted privileged license to write about the mind of "I". In contrast, people writing in (a non-omniscient) 3rd person, are typically not granted as much license to write about the minds. This is not entirely true, as people writing in 3rd person write about minds all the time, but their writings are considered more vulnerable to dispute. For example, if Obama wrote an account of his inauguration and said "I was terrified", it would be considered less vulnerable to dispute than if I wrote an account of his inauguration and said "He was terrified". If these linguistic conventions become reified then we can start taking the "I" not merely to denote the speaker/viewer, but to denote an entity in possession of unique powers that justify the privileges commonly granted to the linguistic device. This is suggested as my understanding of the history, independent of any value judgment regarding the reification.

There is a lurking problem, however, as these conventions do not always seem to hold in the real world. The most glairing probelm is that, at least sometimes, "I" can be wrong about my own mind and "He" can be right. (The cause of my error can range from simply not paying attention to what I am doing, to intentional self-delusion, to forgetting - think Alzheimer's.) For some, these problems lead to an urge to collapse categories, to see if the oddness cannot be gotten rid of if we leave behind the notion of uniqueness that goes with having distinct labels. I suppose that on some formal level, when a dichotomy collapses into a monism, it might not be particularly important which category label remains. However, one category may be preferred over another because it originally contained properties that the author wishes to retain as implicit or explicit in the monistic system that remains. These properties are ported along with word into the monistic system, because the term retains sway as a metaphor.

In this case, the historical bias has been to retain only the "I" position. In this move, the "I" retains its unique insight about ourselves, and any insight we think we have about others must be treated purely as insight about ourselves, i.e. the mind that I know as "their mind" is really just a sub-part of my mind. This leads to extreme forms of idealism (where all the world exists merely as an idea), the two mind problem (is it ever possible for two minds to know the some object?), etc., etc. These were huge turn of the 20th century challenges for philosophy, having grown out of a tradition of pushing more and more extreme the distinguished lineage of ideas flowing from Descartes, Kant, Berkeley, etc. The problems, for the most part, remain. In the extreme form, at least, this lineage leads to a heavy intellectual paralysis, as it is not possible for any "I" to know any other "I", nor to know the "real world" (should such a thing even exist).

The alternative (assuming we are to retain one of the original labels), is to have a bias for the "He" position. This leads to extreme forms of realism, and often (but not always) to behaviorism. In this move, the "I" has to get its information about the mind in the same that "He" has to get information. That is, if my brother knows my mind by observing my behavior, then I can only know my mind by observing my behavior. (Note, that the assertion about observing behavior is a secondary postulate, supplimenting the fundamental assertion that the method of knowing must be the same.)

There are, presumably, things that the I-biased position handles well (I don't know what they are, but there must be some). I know there are things the He-biased position handles well. Among other things it allows us to better understand perfectly normal and mundane conversations such as:

A) "You are angry"
B) "No I'm not"
A) "Yes you are dear. I've known you long enough to know when you're angry."
B) "I think I'd know when I was angry"
A) "You usually don't dear"
... several hours later
B) "Wow, you were right, I was angry. I didn't realize it at the time. I'm sorry"

The I-biased position understands these conversations as very elaborate shell games, where the first statement means something like: "The you that is in my head is currently being modeled by me as having a first-person experience of anger which is itself modeled after my unique first-person experience of anger". Worse, the last sentence seems (to me) totally incoherent from the I-biased position. The He-biased position much more simply believes that a person's anger is visible to himself and others if the right things are attended to, and hence the conversation requires no shell game. Person B simply comes to attend aspects of the situation that A was attending from the start.

Now I will admit that the He-biased perspective has trouble in some situations, but those can't really be discussed until the position is at least understood in the situations it handles well.

Eric







On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 04:05 AM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

Now that we've arrived safely in Canberra, here's my loose end.

A number of people have talked about 1st person vs 3rd person perspectives.  What I'd like to know is what you all mean by a 3rd person perspective.  And what I'd really like to know is why what you mean by a 3rd person perspective isn't the
1st person experience of that perspective. In other words, what does one mean by a perspective or view at all. If someone/something has a view, it's not important (for what I think we're talking about) what the view is viewing. What's important is that someone/something has that view. The viewer then has a 1st person perspective of whatever is being viewed. If what is being viewed has something to do with the viewer, that's neither here nor there.

The more abstract way of saying this is that meaning occurs only in a first person context. Without meaning, all we have are bits, photons, ink on paper, etc. If you want to talk about meaning at all -- whether it's the meaning of a first or third person perspective -- one has already assumed that there is a first person that is understanding that meaning. 

Now since Nick and I seem to have reached an agreement about our positions, I'm not sure whether Nick will disagree with what I've just said.  So, Nick, if you are in agreement, please don't take this as a challenge. In fact, whether or not you agree I think it would be interesting for others on the list to respond to this point. On the other hand, Nick I'm not asking you not to respond -- in agreement of disagreement. I'm always interested in what you have to say.

-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
Cell phone: [phone]
o Check out my blog at <a href="http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/" onclick="window.open('http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/');return false;">http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Nicholas Thompson <nickthompson@...> wrote:

Steve,

 

You asked

 

"How (if at all) does this fit into the 3rd/1st person discussion this all started with?"

 

To be honest, I never tried to fit them together before.  You are demanding reflexivity here ... that my principles concerning how to conduct a discussion be consistent with the argument I am presenting within the discussion.   Always a useful demand. The best I can say is that both seem to embody my belief that in all matters of the mind, if we are willing to work hard enough, we can stand shoulder to shoulder and look at the same thing. 

 

By the way, a couple of you have indicated that you didn't get answers to questions you directed at me, and you rose to my defense.  I confess I got a bit over whelmed there for a while and started selecting questions for answer that I thought I could handle cleanly (as opposed to muddily).  Please if there were lose ends, push them at me again. 

 

Nick

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University (nthompson@...)

<a href="http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/" target="" onclick="window.open('http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/');return false;">http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Steve Smith

To: nickthompson@...;The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group

Sent: 6/22/2009 10:13:50 PM

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation

Nicholas Thompson wrote:

Russ, and Glen, and Steve, n all

 

Ironically, I am with Russ on this one!  I believe both in the possibility and the benefits of clarity. 

I expected that when Russ and I were done, we would be able to agree on an articulation of our positions, where they are similar, where different, etc.  In fact, one of the skills I most revere is the ability to state another person's position to that person's satisfaction.  And, in fact, at one point, I thought I had achieved such an articulation, only to have Russ tell me I had got it wrong.   My guess is that Russ has his feet deeply in Kant, and I have neither boots nor courage high enough to go in there after him.  My son, who is a philosopher, has as good as looked me in the eye and said, "You aint man enough to read Kant!"

 

I studied Kant when I was too young and foolish to know better... but then I had been raised on folks like Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein so Kant was no challenge.   Today I think I would find Kant a bit intimidating.

I am curious about the implications of "one of the skills I most revere is the ability to state another person's position to that person's satisfaction".  It seems to have implications on the root discussion...   The two ways I can obtain a high degree of confidence that I am communicating with another is if I can articulate their position to their satisfaction and vice versa...    I prefer the former over the latter... in the sense that I am almost never satisfied in their articulation... at most I accept it with some reservations.   But if they can keep a straight face while I reel off my version of their understanding of a point, then I try hard not to think too hard about it and call it good.  How (if at all) does this fit into the 3rd/1st person discussion this all started with?

- Steve

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Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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