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Re: Dennett on agency

Posted by Eric Charles-2 on Oct 22, 2020; 3:35am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Dennett-on-agency-tp7599199p7599220.html

"I intend to check the mail in a few minutes.  I am not doing it now.  Nobody else knows of my plan until you read this.  Why can't I validly say that I have that intention?" 

You CAN say that you have that intention. The Big Questions are 1) To what are you referring when you say that. 2) Could you be in error regarding the thing being referred to?  

Once we work out the answer to Question 1 we will, Nick and others of his ilk would assert, find that it would be more grammatically clean to not use the word "have", because that implies a thing that can be possessed. I have a bank account; I do my morning exercises. Of course, some other languages don't distinguish those verbs in exactly the way English tends to... and English varies from place to place... so your mileage may vary. For example, under some circumstances "I am going to have tea" could be synonymous with "I am going to do high-tea."

At any rate, some of us would assert that when you say "I intend to check the mail in a few minutes" you are predicting/asserting things you will do in the future (barring some dramatic change in circumstances) and that you are an imperfect predictor of such things. To reify that pattern-of-future-behavior as a thing you "have" now is, at the least, some sort of category error. 

And, of course, if you aren't trying to do philosophy of psychology or scientific psychology, then your using vernacular phrasing is no worse than similar things that people in other sciences might object to. For example, you can find physicists who will get snippy over whether it is correct to say that you add cold to something (vs. take away heating), but, like, if it's a cooking show or a casual conversation, it really doesn't matter much. 


On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 4:55 PM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
I intend to check the mail in a few minutes.  I am not doing it now.  Nobody else knows of my plan until you read this.  Why can't I validly say that I have that intention?

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 2:27 PM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Russ,

 

I have not had time to follow this thread, but just want to remind you what my first response to your question would be.  Intentions are not the sorts of thing we “have”.  They are things that we do.  They are of a higher order than knee jerks, or even apple bites,  but they are patterns in behavior all the same.

 

I have busy because I signed up to do all sorts of things in September because I had nothing to do, and to my horror and surprise, every thing I signed up for, bore fruit and now I am overwhelmed.   I have a prejudice against Dennett.  I think he worries too much about his standing with the Big Kids at Harvard and trying NOT to violate vernacular ways of thinking so much as to dent his royalties.   And I am jealous of him. 

 

So there. 

 

Hope you are well

 

Nick

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2020 12:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Dennett on agency

 

Not sure what the point is. Larger systems can exploit information and "pick of scars." Cells in that sense are larger systems. I'm confused about what that is supposed to add to the discussion.

 

Computer programs can certainly be described using intentional language. Does that mean that a computer program can have intention? If so, that seems to degrade the notion of intent. 

 

-- Russ Abbott                                      
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

 

 

On Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 9:23 AM jon zingale <[hidden email]> wrote:

... and why tornados fail to have it. A key feature appears to be that agents
have a history that makes a difference, can exploit information the way a
thermostat can. Electrons or molecular motors, for instance, don't pick up
scratches or scars. Sean Carroll adds that agents participate in the arrow
of time.

Queued up to the relevant part of the discussion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yZw4wxvnVQ&ab_channel=SeanCarroll&t=1670s



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