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

[Eric Charles]

Jon,
This is a great expansion of the issue, and it might take me a bit to build
up to an adequate response.

You are definitely right that "scale" is one of many dimensions we might
look at when evaluating whether or not something is a behavior. The
evaluation of whether or not something is behaving involves comparisons,
and those comparisons have to be "fair" in some sense that suggests a
"domain". For example, if we drop a dead duck out a window, and then agree
that falling in that fashion does not evidence behavior, we wouldn't want
to then move to a coin-drop in water (where the coin spins and slides
erratically, moving down at various speeds) and assert the coin was alive
because it's movement didn't look like the dead-duck's movement.

Does that get us anywhere?


-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist
American University - Adjunct Instructor
<echarles at american.edu>


On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 12:58 PM Jon Zingale <jonzingale at gmail.com> wrote:

> Glen, Eric,
>
> I am enjoying how the conversation is developing. The celery
> example strikes me as being important, but where Glen refers
> to *scale* I would speak of *domain of definition*. That a shift in
> domain happens to be size, rather than some other contextual
> specification, may not be what we want. If this isn't the case
> Glen, please let me know. With respect to Eric's points it seems
> fair to me to say that a paddle wheel is behaving, but perhaps not
> in the *larger* context of the river. The celery is behaving, but not
> not in the *smaller* context of capillary action. Here I am using
> the language of *large* and *small*, but perhaps other modalities
> have a place as well. One can say Nick's behavior appears
> spontaneously, but in fact was necessitated by something *prior*.
> Here an *earlier* Nick could play the role of the river.
>
> Frank,
> Would you say that the mind is as public as RSA encryption?
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