[FRIAM] A Question For Tomorrow

Wed May 1 14:57:01 EDT 2019

I left when the pit bull had lost interest in the other dog, which it couldn't reach .  The pit bull, kind of playfully, went back to its master who was upright by then, as if nothing had happened.   To be honest, I felt sorry for that guy but I didn't want to engage with him because his options were obvious and all bad.   The pit bull hadn't violated the don't-hurt-the-pack taboo, but was unaware of other modern taboos.   I think we can look forward to more of this sort of thing from the tribalism of human animals.

On 5/1/19, 12:46 PM, "Nick Thompson" <nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:

    What a great story, Marcus.  Do you know how it came out?  I know that's irrelevant, but still I want to know. 

    More to the point, I take it you have no trouble calling that behavior "single-mindedness."  Does anybody else?  

    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 Marcus Daniels
    Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2019 12:25 PM
    To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
    Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A Question For Tomorrow

    On 5/1/19, 12:06 PM, "uǝlƃ ☣" <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

     <   All that text is merely to provide context that my guess is your depth-firsty commitment to a reasonably trustworthy reductionism isn't as depth-firsty as you think it is. It's more like those massive muscles in your back or leg that attract all the attention, but that are useless without the thousands of little control tissues providing the context that allows the big guys to do their work.  >

    That's probably so.  One would hope that one gets better over time at choosing when to sink one's teeth in to something.   

    Oh, this is kind of an unpleasant story but it speaks to the emotional side of this.   I may have mentioned it before in some other context.   I'm driving home after some errands on a Saturday and I see this woman kicking a dog in the middle of Canyon road.   It's a pit bull and it is mauling her smaller, defenseless dog.   Several people are trying to figure out how to stop this, and we drag the mess off to the side of the road and try to start to pry open the pit bull's jaws.   This wasn't some mix of pit bull, this was the real thing.   It didn't think it was strong, it was strong.  It was not an easy task to slow the pit bull down, even with several men with gloves.  An older man that had probably rescued the dog had been knocked over and was struggling to collect himself.  He could see his dog was going to be put down and was distraught.    The woman was also of course distraught seeing her pet being killed.   

    But the fascinating part of this was watching the pit bull work.   It would slow down for a moment just to see what the humans were doing and go from one target to the next when the time was right.   It was _totally_ committed.    We did eventually free the smaller dog and isolated it in a safe place until it could be taken to the vet.    The pit bull did not show any indication of hostility toward a human, it just wouldn't budge on what it was doing.   In spite of the awfulness of it all, I couldn't help admire that single-mindedness.   

    Marcus 

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