[FRIAM] 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 <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: 

 



 

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:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of ? u???
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2018 12:08 PM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
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)> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_(2008_film)

 

--

∄ uǝʃƃ

 

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