[FRIAM] Motives - Was Abduction

[Frank Wimberly]

For a classic example of layers or levels and their interactions see

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Hearsay-I-Speech-Understanding-System%3A-An-of-Reddy-Erman/04ffb20cbfa502d3d2611dcfe027cfa94b45a629

-----------------------------------
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, Jan 7, 2019, 7:02 AM ∄ uǝʃƃ <gepropella at gmail.com wrote:

> OK.  I'm sorry if I've pushed too hard.  But if what you say, here, can
> imply that motives are NOT just behaviors at a higher level of
> organization, then perhaps that's progress.
>
> Because it seems to have traction, I'll stick with the tissue, cell,
> molecule set.  The reason I suggested you replace your "higher level"
> hierarchy with words describing a heterarchy, is because we (none of us)
> can pinpoint the tissue organizing logic [†].  While it's a useful fiction
> to suggest that tissue is cells organized at a higher level, we can *just
> as well* say tissue is organized by cellular behavior collectively.
>
> So, in one hierarchy, we have {tissue <- cell <- molecules}.  But in
> another hierarchy, we have {cell <- tissue, cell <- molecules}.  If you set
> your email client to monospace:
>
>    tissue
>      |
>    cells
>      |
>  molecules
>
> versus:
>
>      cells
>      |  |
> tissue  molecules
>
> One of the definitions of "heterarchy" is that the components can be
> organized in multiple ways.  So, again, I apologize if my attempts are
> irritating.  But it *really* would help dorks like me parse what you're
> saying if you used words that allowed for more complete statements.  I've
> tried to suggest "layer" and "order" as a replacement for "level".  Some
> suggestions for replacing your statement about motives might be:
>
>   Motives ARE behaviors, just dynamically mixed by the organism.
>   Motives ARE behaviors, just organized to cohere.
>   Motives ARE behaviors, just a heterarchy re-organizable to approach a
> goal.
>
> I'd claim that each of those is more accurate and complete than "organized
> at a higher level".  To boot, they give your audience a much *better* hint
> at your "if you stand next to me, you will see what I see."  That's because
> each one of my rewordings directly implies an organizing agency.  Your
> "organized at a higher level" can be taken to be an ontological assertion
> ... that this hierarchy is ensconced in the universe and would be a feature
> of, say, silicon based life on Alpha Centauri.
>
> All it takes is to stop relying on this higher- and lower-level fiction.
>
>
> [†] Is it in the cells?  Is it in the genes? Is it an attractor that might
> obtain even if the cells were zero-intelligence agents?  I would argue that
> "it" is distributed across the whole set of components and relations ...
> further arguing that it's a heterarchy. But all we need to do for this
> discussion is admit that we don't really know and use words that give a
> more complete indication *that* we don't really know and need to study it
> further.
>
>
> On 1/6/19 4:26 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> > In the first instance, to a pragmatist, any statement that X is Thus, is
> > incomplete.  So that statement, X is hierarchically organized, is just an
> > incomplete statement.  So an argument about whether anything IS JUST
> > hierarchically organized is a silly argument.  What is not a silly
> argument
> > is that X is hierarchically organized for some purpose of from point of
> > view, P.  So all attributions are three0valued, sign, object,
> interpretant.
> > Is this relativism?  No, not in the ordinary sense.  Because the
> pragmatist
> > asserts that if you stand next to me, you will see what I see.  Or, to
> put
> > it less metaphorically, if you do the experiment you will get the result.
> > So, if you take Eric or I to be saying that anything is one hundred
> present
> > hierarchically organized all the time and in all respects, you take us
> > wrong.
>
> --
> ∄ uǝʃƃ
>
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