----- Original Message -----From: [hidden email]To: [hidden email]Sent: 6/26/2009 5:05:49 PMSubject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd personSee below (again)
-- Russ Abbott
_____________________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
Cell phone: 310-621-3805
o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/
On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 3:18 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
Dear Friam,this is probably just Abbot and Thompson going around the track again, so you have my permission to disregard.comments below:Nicholas S. ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,Clark University ([hidden email])Cc: [hidden email]Sent: 6/26/2009 2:37:28 PMSubject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd personI was afraid you would say that. But a statement like that raises the dishonest (disingenuous?) flag for me. If we focus on "salty" you know what it's like to taste something that's salty. You said so yourself. "Well it's ... salty." That's more than just doing salty or seeing salty. You didn't say that it's not like anything.You said it's salty, implying that you have an experience of saltiness when you taste salt. That's an example of a qualia.nst---> NOOOOOOOO! NO! and NO!. It just means I have tasted the stuff in the cylindrical blue box with the word SALT on it. And why can't I just be wrong, by the way. Why do I have to be a liar.But what does it mean to have tasted the stuff?
Furthermore (and I know I'm going to regret giving you two things to reply to), even if you can say you know what it is to do happy (or salty), that still implies a first person perspective.nst---> Is this a typo? I said I didnt know. At least, I said I didnt know the "Nyuh" of happiness.
You said (emphasis added), "I am afraid it is "nyuh blindness". I certainly know what it is to do happy, and see happy, but "be" happy causes the little hourglass on my screen to freeze."
My question is what do you mean by the italicized part? And especially by the "I certainly know" part?After all, what is it like to know what something is in the sense that you just used that phrase. That's the point I've been trying to make in last few messages. We don't need to insist on qualia. Just the simple fact of knowing what something is, implies a first person that is doing the knowing.nst---> No. I just implies a point of view from which the world appears that way. But we may be bypassing each other here. Eric and I have already stipulated that it is possible to include oneself in one's own point of view and thus to "know" onceself; I think we are denying only that there is anything special about doing so. No "Nyuh". Have you seen some the wierd stuff that is coming from these people? http://www.neuro.ki.se/ehrsson/publications.php Oddly enough, I am sure you will see it as confirming your view, just as i see it as confirming mine.We got stuck on knowledge as true belief when I tried this tack before. Here I'm using know in the sense that you intended it (whatever that sense is) in your statement. Perhaps it would be useful for you to explain what you meant by that statement. In other words, what is it to know what it is to do happy?nst---> The same as to know how to play chess.
And what does that mean?
-- RussOn Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 10:08 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
Russ,I am afraid it is "nyuh blindness". I certainly know what it is to do happy, and see happy, but "be" happy causes the little hourglass on my screen to freeze.NNicholas S. ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,Clark University ([hidden email])----- Original Message -----From: [hidden email]To: [hidden email]Sent: 6/26/2009 12:14:49 AMSubject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd personWell, that's one reason I resisted talking about qualia. The point is that you can't explain what it's like to taste salt. So your first instinct, "well, it's just .....salty!" is the right answer for those of us who talk about qualia. So qualia are experiences about which one can't say much more than "Well it's just ... <whatever the experience is>" The question then is how do we understand/explain/talk about such phenomena from a scientific perspective.When you way that you don't understand what Qualia mean are you saying that you have no idea what the term is trying to get at or that the defintion as written doesn't do a good job of conveying its meaning, which you more or less understand. If the former (that you have no idea what the term is trying to get at) would you also say that you don't know what feeling happy, sad, nauseous (again) mean? We've probably been over this too many times, but this seems to be one of the sticking points.
But if you ignore qualia, what about the rest of what I wrote, that no matter what perspective one is talking about, the simple abiltiy to have a perspective implies a first person?-- RussOn Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 1:46 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:Russ --Perhaps the problem is that I don't understand what Qualia means. Here is the quote from"The intrinsic phenomenal features of subjective consciousness, or sense data. Thus, qualia include what it is like to see green grass, to taste salt, to hear birds sing, to have a headache, to feel pain, etc. Providing an adequate account of qualia is sometimes held to be a difficult problem for functionalist explanations of mental states."I just canNOT make sense of this passage. [NB, that behaviorism is sort of a school of functionalism]. Let's take seriously the Question, "What is it like to taste salt? " As I wrestle with it, I come up with two equally unsatisfying answers. "well, it's just .....salty!" Unsatisfying, because no new information added.Or "It's like tasting sea water." Which is ok by me, but I am pretty sure wont satisfy you. Hans Wallach was a senior professor at Swarthmore when I came there to replace their behaviorist for a couple of years. Whenever he talked about qualia he talked about the "Nyuh" of an experience. "Nyuh" was always accompanied by forming a cone with the thumb and forefingers of one hand and twitchily inclining the hand toward one's audience. Ultimately, they had to let me go because I never could figure out what "Nyuh" was. I would have taken this on myself except the man I replaced never came back either. So, it wouldn't surprise me, Russ, if we could never agree on the "Nyuh". Perhaps I am "Nyuh blind."NickNicholas S. ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,Clark University ([hidden email])Sent: 6/25/2009 9:12:05 PMSubject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd personHi Nick,Your reply to Rikus didn't answer my questions.You're right that I didn't mean knowledge in the sense of true belief. What I'm really talking about are qualia, but I didn't want to introduce that term. Besides, it's more than just qualia. And it's not just first vs. third person. It's that to speak of any perspective implies someone/something having that perspective, which seems to me to be first person for that person/thing. I don't see how one can get away from a first person perspective if one wants to talk about knowledge, belief, experience, perspective, or any other term that we use for abstracted experience.I'm using the term "abstracted" to refer to virtually any version of experience that has been processed into a more abstract than the lowest level of physics such as photons, electrons, etc. Whatever is doing that processing has its own (unique) abstracted version of that experience.
-- RussOn Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 12:45 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:Yeah. I just moved a cleaned up version on the wires.I am beginning to wonder if the definition of "knowledge" isn't the problem here. To philosophers, knowledge means "true belief". (See, for instance http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/k9.htm#know). So, for something to be knowledge, it has to be true from two points of view: the person who believes the knowledge and .... er ..... um ...God's. Or at least, some universal point of view like the one imagined in our discussion of "information."Here is where I may have created a problem. For years I have thought that having to know what God thinks in order to judge whether somebody knows something or not is really stupid. God's consciousness, after all, is even more opaque than most. So, for me, I use knowledge and belief pretty much interchangeably.Could it be that this is why I don't understand Russ when he speaks of subjective knowledge?Nicholas S. ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,Clark University ([hidden email])----- Original Message -----From: [hidden email]Sent: 6/25/2009 8:24:49 PMSubject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd personBut I didn't want to exclude you either.Whether it's from a point of view or not, the issue I was getting at is what does it mean to say that someone knows something -- and if you asked him would say that he feels reasonably confident about that knowledge. And I'm thinking primarily of knowledge derived from direct experience (like the sun being out or the color of the wall he is staring at), not knowlwedge based on having read something. But Rikus' example gets at the same sort of thing in a much more worked out way. So dealing with his questions would be good way to proceed.
-- RussOn Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 12:03 AM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:Russ,I wasnt invited to answer this one, but... isnt your question incomplete? Isnt knowledge always from a point of view?"what about [you, me, he] knowing that the sun is out (assuming that it is)."Professor ButtinskiNicholas S. ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,Clark University ([hidden email])----- Original Message -----From: [hidden email]To: [hidden email]Sent: 6/24/2009 8:45:22 PMSubject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversation - 1st vs 3rd personThanks, Eric. My question had to do with the (f)act of knowing anything rather than what it is that is known. Your discussion has to do with knowing a mind and the 1st vs 3rd person perspective. What about simply knowing that the sun is out (assume it is) or that the sky is blue (assume you are under a cloudless blue sky). From your perspective do you see a 1st/3rd person perspective when the subject matter is not someone's mind?
-- RussOn Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 11:57 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[hidden email]> wrote: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.
EricOn 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: 310-621-3805
o Check out my blog at http://bluecatblog.wordpress.com/On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Nicholas Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote: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. ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,Clark University ([hidden email])Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Direct conversationNicholas Thompson wrote: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.Russ, and Glen, and Steve, n allIronically, 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 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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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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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
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
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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