[FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Hi Jon, 

 

I predict that Eric is going to insist that behavior is necessarily at an instant.  But carrying this principle out to its logical conclusion, I am not sure that being dead is not a behavior, or the limit of a behavior.  Think for a moment about the baby rabbit that plays dead to escape the attentions of your cat.  Playing dead is a behavior that spans time and includes becoming dead-like and seeming to come to life again.  Let’s see what Eric actually says. 

 

N

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Jon Zingale
Sent: Tuesday, May 5, 2020 9:21 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Movement vs. Behavior, and what's in the Black Box

 

Eric,

 

I love that you brought Weekend at Bernie's into the discussion,

wow, the 80's. I am not sure we must all agree that Bernie or

the dead duck or the marionette are just moving because we may

want to allow for transitions between domains of definition.

Of course, we can all agree if you wish to fix some domain.

Still, the live duck may be in a coma and opening the marionette

may be necessary to rule out a mechanism. Even as Bernie is

manipulated or as Tina fails to recognize Bernie as dead, his

body continues to behave. Perhaps even just his gut fauna.

Is it that we define behavior so that we can distinguish it from

just moving? I could be ok with that as a starting point.

 

Jonathan Zingale

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