[FRIAM] A longer response to Dave's question

Sat Feb 22 00:09:12 EST 2020

India.

Being afraid is a good thing. It heightens our senses, causes us to be
better prepared to react against threats (dictators) when they happen.
As of now our 2 mutual (respective ?) dictators are confabulating.

On Sat, Feb 22, 2020 at 10:23 AM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I suppose, as a behaviorist, I have to conclude that “being afraid” is a
> doing.  What else would you do?
>
>
>
> Are you afraid of dictators where you are?  Where ARE you, by the way.  I
> am guessing UK or India, but I don’t want to presume.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Sarbajit Roy
> *Sent:* Friday, February 21, 2020 9:39 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] A longer response to Dave's question
>
>
>
> Hi Nick
>
>
>
> To reply to your question,
>
>
>
> a) I would not be living in the US if I could help it  In fact I have
> never come anywhere close to the USA for a variety of reasons.
>
> b) If I were living in the US I would be very scared of dictators
>
>
>
> Sarbajit
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 22, 2020 at 9:58 AM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Enclosing every elephant in the room is a larger, more hideous, elephant
> in the room.  It’s elephants-in-the-room all the way down.
>
>
>
> Sarbajit, human to human.  If you lived in the United States, what would
> you now be doing?
>
>
>
> N
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Sarbajit Roy
> *Sent:* Friday, February 21, 2020 8:20 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] A longer response to Dave's question
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
> 1. Since Christ has never been proved to have existed, it seems to me (as
> a non-psychologist) those consuming his 'blood' religiously appear as
> victims/participants of group mass delusions reinforced by their regular
> shared consumption of a narcotic in a controlled environment replete with
> symbols to reinforce their delusion.
>
>
>
> 2. Now to your more important question for us outside the USA.  "*Is
> Trump a proto-dictator?  What are the consequences in experience of
> believing that he is?  What does that belief cause us to expect in him. *"
>
> In my view, and in the *view of many non-Americans*
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/opinion/taliban-afghanistan-war-haqqani.html>,
> it is the nation of USA collectively which is the tyrannical dictatorship,
> and it is quite irrelevant who heads it (symbolically), because all US
> Presidents carry on the same acts of raining bombs from the sky on those
> who disagree with US policies or the US' aforesaid mass delusion called
> Christianity.
>
>
>
> Sarbajit Roy
>
> Brahma University
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 10:31 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Geez, Dave,
>
>  There's an awful lot here.  Do you mean to take the hardest case?  A
> person?  And particularly a person who has been so much in all our faces
> that it's hard for most of us to think of him rationally, if at all?
>
>  Let's take a simpler example.  An example that Peirce takes is
> transubstantiation, the idea that in ritual of the mass the communion wine
> becomes the blood of Christ.  Once consecrated, is the communion "beverage"
> wine or blood?  Let's say we disagree on that point.  We both see that it's
> a red liquid in a chalice, on which basis we jump to different
> conclusions.  From the properties or redness and liquidness that the
> substance in the chalice shares with both blood and wine, you abduce that
> it is wine, I abduce that it is blood.  So far, we stand equal. But now the
> chalice is brought to our lips.  For me, (forgive me, Catholics, for I know
> not what I say) I feel momentarily cleansed of my sins, uplifted.  Since
> part of my conception of Christ's blood is that if I drank some of it I
> would feel cleansed and uplifted, I conclude that it is indeed, Christs'
> blood.  You, on the other hand, experience the flat, sour taste of
> inexpensive wine, feel no uplift whatsoever, and conclude that the chalice
> contains wine.  We are still on equal footing.
>
>  But now the science begins.  We whisk away the stuff in the chalice to
> the laboratory.  As a preliminary, each of us is asked to list in their
> entirety all the effects of our conception.  We are being asked to
> *deduce* from the categories to which we have *abduced*, the consequences
> of our abductions  They are numerous, but to simply the discussion, lets
> say each of us lists five.  I say, if it is Christ's blood, then I should
> feel transformed when drinking it, and then I pause.  The scientists also
> pause, pencils in hand, and I have to go on.  Well, in addition to its
> red-liquidity,  I say, it should be slightly salty-sweet to taste, be thick
> on the tongue, curdle when heated, sustain life of somebody in need of a
> transfusion, etc.  So we do the tests, and the  results are yes, no, no,
> no, no.  The scientists now turn to you and you say, it should, as well as
> red and liquid, be sour, thin on the tongue, intoxicating in large amounts,
> produce a dark residue when heated, etc..  So, the tests come out yes, yes,
> yes, yes, yes.
>
>  So, is it really blood or really wine?  Well, that of course depends on
> one’s priorities.  If the sole criterion for a red fluid being Christ’s
> blood is that it produces in one person, Nick Thompson, a sense of
> cleansing, then the fact that it doesn’t pass any of the other tests for
> blood will make no difference.  I can assert that that Christ’s blood is a
> very special sort of blood that cleanses the spirit of Nick Thompson, but
> does none of the other things that blood does.  Indeed, I might assert that
> anything the priest handed me in the chalice, once duly consecrated, would
> be Christ’s blood.   The idea that it “works for me” makes it “Christ’s
> blood for me and that’s all that matters.  And if I could bring a regiment
> of Spanish soldiers with spears to friam, and have them insist that you
> drink from the chalice and feel cleansed, many of you might begin to agree
> with me.
>
>  This is the view of pragmatism that James has been accused of, but it is
> definitely NOT the view that Peirce held.  If the position is, “whatever
> the officiant says is christs blood is christ’s blood by definition”, then,
> Piece would say the position is either
>
> Meaningless or false.  It might be meaningless, because there is no
> possible world in which it could be false.  Or it might be false, because
> our best guess as scientists is  that in the very long run, in the
> asymptote of scientific inquiry, our best scientific guess is that the
> contents of the chalice will be agreed upon to be wine.
>
>  Again, let me apologize for my ignorant rendition of Catholic ritual.  It
> IS the example that Peirce takes, but I now see that that is probably a
> poor excuse.  Peirce was, after all, a protestant, and one with many
> prejudices, so it would not surprise me if he was anti-catholic and himself
> chose the example in a mean-spirited way.  So, be a little careful in how
> you respond.
>
>  Is Trump a proto-dictator?  What are the consequences in experience of
> believing that he is?  What does that belief cause us to expect in him.
> Tim Snyder, in his little book ON TYRANNY, does a very good job of laying
> out the parallels between what is going on in our politics right now and
> what goes on in the early stages of the establishment o a dictatorship.
> Trump is fulfilling many of Snyder’s expectations.  Whether Trump succeeds
> in establishing a dictatorship or not, I think the long run of history will
> conclude that he is making a stab at it.
>
>  Nick
>
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
>
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
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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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