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

[Jon Zingale]

Eric,

I mean to use the word *decide* in a similar way that I might
use the word *fix* or *given*. While you may find my usage strange,
I am not sure that my goals are all that different from your own.
If we choose to progress with the conversation, and to develop
models/linguistic frameworks/science, I agree that we are likely
going to need to *fix, decide, *or set as *given* some ideas.

My son, Tycho, is named after the geocentricist whose incorrect
assumptions and careful observations paved the way to a more
correct understanding of the cosmos. In these conversations, I am
more interested in the models we build than the reality described.

Tycho is still in his first two months of life and still has his
Moro reflex. My concern with the falling coin and the maple seedpods
examples is connected to my witnessing these reflexes. I suspect we
would agree that the reflex is a behavior exhibited by Tycho and yet
it may be of a different type than Nick's flailing. Perhaps the model
we create here will not be adequate to answer such questions. This
will be ok with me. Again, I am interested in models on their own
merit. In theory, I could be interested enough in whatever distinctions
we wish to make. Please understand that my probing is an attempt
to elucidate what will be our collective notion of behavior.

Glen,

Thank you for hearing my point about domains and elaborating to
include a discussion of where pathologies like *assumed continuity*
(for instance) can sneak in. If we agree that a coil of wire behaves
like an inductor and that this is *not a metaphor*, I am ok with this.
To some extent I am also probing Eric for his feeling about this.
I project that his interest in behavior is motivated by his interest
in animals, Eric writes as motivating questions: "Why did he do
that?" "Why am I acting this way?" When we wonder
"Why is he angry at me?". I thought it would be helpful if we
lay those cards-on-the-table.

>From my perspective, it is fine to talk about the wire as an inductor,
a capacitor and a resistor in nearly every physical instance. It appears
to me that what concepts we import are a matter of what concepts we
wish to describe. Providing a mechanism for reasoning about domains,
I feel frees us to, OTOH, determine when we are talking past on another,
and OTO, acknowledge the power of parallax when we move between
domains. Additionally, I appreciate that you explicitly introduced topology
and measure into the discussion. It is good for me to be reminded that
spaces more-often-than-not are far from Hausdorff and that questions of
boundaries, cut-points and openness are subtle. I wish to state here a
perspective
that I assume you share, that these topological considerations were born in
pure mathematics but exist to aid our understanding of lived experience.
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