[FRIAM] do animals psychologize?

Mon Sep 17 18:29:56 EDT 2018

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 <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
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:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 4:50 PM
> To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
> 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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