[FRIAM] query and observation

[Prof David West]

So far, Amsterdam looks like a 2-4 year deal. Hope to be in US in October and Santa Fe at least one Friday that month.

1- unmediated perception. Only metaphor possible: remember old CRT televisions not on channel - the fuzz or snow, random pixels of black or white or greyscale. The organism desperately tries to perceive patterns, to make sense of, the input. No remove the perceived - or more accurately the perceived and the perceived are one and the same. Ego is tough and keeps trying to re-assert itself such that there is a “a perceiver (yourself) and the perceived. Toggle back and forth to the presence/absence of ego and conclude that which is sensed - no longer perceived or experienced - is unmediated and all else is mediated, even if by organismic habit.

Gadamer was Heidegger’s “best” student and extended the philosophy - Heidegger Time and Being, Gadamer Truth and Method are main works.

”you dualists” - Moi? Au Contraire - I am an absolute Monist. One, all inclinations to the contrary are false. All you lower-case monistic are just pretenders trapped in dualist language with that damned verb “to be.”


Sheldrake posited the idea of morphogenetic field - a kind of awkward metaphor that he could use to account for phenomena like the 100th monkey syndrome - i.e. knowledge “transmitted” among those of the same morphology even absent any kind of standard communication channels. Considered nuts, but with lots of interesting empirical data.

davew




On Fri, Sep 13, 2019, at 4:51 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Dave,

> 

> Please see larding below!

> 

> 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 Prof David West
> Sent: Friday, September 13, 2019 5:12 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] query and observation

> 

> this is the FRIAM I knew and loved,

> **[NST==>Your use of the past tense makes me nervous. When ARE you coming back? <==nst] **

> 

> 

> As one of the deluded ones claiming direct, non intermediated, perception of that which is behind Hoffman's interface, his arguments are not surprising. Blaming the existence of the interface on evolution was kind of new and interesting.

> **[NST==>I am too demented right now to give this the consideration it deserves, but you, Dave, have always been generous about my dementias, so I am going to allow myself to continue, here. I just want to know, though, how you tell the difference between your direct knowledge, and the other kind. Does direct knowledge come with little “d” icons attached? So, not only do you have direct knowledge but you also have direct knowledge that that knowledge is direct, and direct knowledge that your knowledge of that knowledge is direct and ….ad finitum. Just checking. <==nst] **

> 

> It is the juxtaposition, entirely coincidental, of Hoffman with Heidegger, Gadamer, and the whole hermeneutic school of philosophy that caused the greatest amount of thinking. Although not a hermeneuticist per se, Peirce seems to be at minimum, a fellow traveler.

> **[NST==>Yes, I agree. Although, in my present demented state, I wouldn’t know a Gadamer if it bit me on my ankle. <==nst] **

> 

> The claim by Hoffman, and all the physicists he cites, that the only thing we can know is the interface and whatever is behind that interface is not what everyone thinks it is, i.e. Objective Reality˛— seems to parallel the hermeneutic position that all we can know is the interpretation and whatever is behind the interpretation is not what every thinks it is, i.e. Truth.

> **[NST==>You dualists offer us a false choice. Either we must assert a truth beyond experience, or deny any truth at all. By why not a truth IN experience. Truth is a [mathematical] property of experience. That upon which human experience converges. Truth is just what keeps banging us on the head as we grope around in the dark. <==nst] **

> 

> Nick's monism seems. to me, to be similar with Behavior more or less the same thing as Interface or Interpretation.

> **[NST==>Well, yes, but with Peirce’s pragmatic[ist] notion of truth. Some methodological behaviorists [Watson] were proper dualists, asserting only that talk of events beyond experience was scientifically nugatory. Philosophical behaviorists [Wittgenstein??] assert that talk of events beyond experience is MEANINGLESS. <==nst] **

> 

> Hoffman's argument that, because we are all humanoids and share the same spot in the evolutionary sequence, we share a common, mostly, Interface made me think immediately of Rupert Sheldrake and morphogenetic fields.

> **[NST==>I can’t call up Sheldrake at the moment, but if you are talking about the manner in which development channels us into common paths, the fact that even though there is tremendous randomness in epigenetic processes, yet we all end up looking [pretty much] the same, then, yes, I think the metaphor is excellent. <==nst] **

> 

> It is not the book, in itself, it is the connections that are fascinating.

> 

> davew

> 

> 

> 

> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019, at 4:05 AM, glen∈ℂ wrote:

> > Heh, I doubt you're missing my point. And please don't mistake my

> > defense/explanation of Hoffman as advocacy. I think it's interesting.

> > But he relies too much, IMO, on idealized modeling. So, I don't think

> > the interface idea is really all that important. But it is interesting.

> >

> > To me, though, the way the interface idea directly impacts my

> > day-to-day actions is in facilitating my (already present) doubt about

> > any metaphysical claims. When some arbitrary person tells me *why*

> > they made some decision like accepting a job offer or whatever,

> > Hoffman's idea helps me understand their rationale. E.g. in the

> > *simple* strategy, where an agent makes their decision on the

> > green/red heuristic, if that agent *talks* in terms of green and red,

> > then my judgment of them is positive. If, however, that agent

> > hand-waves themselves into metaphysical hooha about why they made

> > their decision, then my judgment is negative.

> >

> > Practically, we could talk about that the "singularity" is fideistic.

> > Or we could talk about Renee's son's belief in "the principle of

> > attraction". Or from cognitive behavior therapy, concepts like

> > "catastrophizing" are understandable in these terms. When a 15 year

> > old exclaims that "My parents will kill me" it's an exclamation that's

> > not very easy to understand for someone whose actually had someone try

> > to kill them. But if we understand the boundaries and extent of the

> > control surface one has access to, it makes the exclamation more

> > understandable.

> >

> > I've mentioned this in the context of "code switching". The ability to

> > put oneself in the shoes of another depends, fundamentally, on

> > how/whether you can doff or don their "interface". More speculatively,

> > I've had a lot of trouble sympathizing with the idiots who voted for

> > Trump. But I can divide any 2 Trump supporters into those who *refuse*

> > to make "metaphysical" statements and those who adhere closely to

> > "what I thought at the time".

> >

> > To me, the hygienic examples of heliocentrism etc. are impoverished.

> > The usefulness is more about how/when to recognize when someone's

> > "blowing smoke" or being authentic in describing their inner life.

> > It's possible the reason some of us might have trouble seeing how the

> > idea would matter is because *some* of us already doubt much/most of

> > what people, including our selves, say. And that we don't need the

> > interface idea to be so doubtful? 8^)

> >

> > On 9/12/19 5:38 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> > > I may be missing your point badly, but your response lead me to flip

> > > my thinking inside out and ask myself just what I mean by "so what"

> > > and realized that *might* be the central point to Hoffman's argument.

> > >

> > > My "so what?" perhaps illuminates Hoffman's argument: The utility

> > > of my perception of the sun and moon as orbiting the earth (or

> > > actually more typically of them arcing across the surface of one or

> > > more fixed

> > > domes) is higher in most contexts than perceiving them as being

> > > involved in a much more abstract (albeit elegantly simpler?)

> > > relationship formulized by GmM/r^2. This "utility landscape" IS

> > > the fitness landscape for evolution. Obviously there must be

> > > "gateways" (passes, tunnels, etc.) from the portion of this

> > > landscape we live in everyday to the ones say where we are trying to

> > > predict uncommon astronomical observations (e.g. eclipses).

> > >

> > > I didn't mean to suggest that I didn't think the work was important

> > > or interesting or fundamental, only that I don't see how it changes

> > > how I live my everyday life for the most part. I am *literally*

> > > trying to invert my metaperceptions to see how I could be directly

> > > aware that my perceptions are an interface, not a direct response to

> > > reality... all easy to do intellectually (once some thought has been

> > > put into it) but not so easy to apprehend even indirectly?

> >

> > ============================================================

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> > 

> 

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> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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