[FRIAM] Behavior?? The Lost Lardings

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Hi, Dave, 

 

FWIW, see below. 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

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

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020 10:38 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] Behavior??

 

"Turkey mothers are good mothers—loving, watchful and protective. Virtually all of this mothering is triggered by one thing: the "cheep-cheep" sound of young turkey chicks.  For a mother turkey the polecat is a natural enemy whose approach is to be greeted with squawking, pecking, clawing rage. If a stuffed model of a polecat  is drawn by string to a mother turkey it evokes the appropriate offensive behavior, but if the same model has a hidden tape recorder that emits the "cheep-cheep" sound the mother not only accepts the oncoming polecat, but gathers it beneath her.

 

This kind of "fixed action pattern" can involve intricate sequences of behavior, such as entire courtship or mating rituals. (see attachement). The interesting aspect of this is how the sequences are activated — with a "trigger feature;" e.g. a particular shade of red or blue chest feathers, but not a perfect replica of a rival bird absent colored chest feathers.

 

Then my questions.

 

1- Is a "behavior" always a movement plus an X-factor?

   1A. is the X-factor other nuances of movement, e.g. rippling eyelashes on the contracted eyelid? 

[NST===>Earlier in this discussion, I was forced to take the position, contra EricC, I think, that an intention is not necessary to the identification of a behavior.  On the other hand, I don’t want to fall for “muscle-twitchism”, the doctrine that ANY movement is a behavior.  So I think I am stuck saying that what distinguishes a muscle twitch from a behavior is that a behavior is a response to something.  So is the patellar reflex a behavior? Yes, I have to day, but there the trick is saying what it is a behavior OF.  Where Geertz/ryle can help us out in the usual way.  The patellar reflex is a behavior of a subsystem of you, not of you.  Faking a patellar reflex would be a behavior of you.  <===nst] 

   1B. is the X-factor an intentional signal? or is it "meaning." is intention required?

[NST===>I regret I can’t say it any better than I did above, and may change my mind tomorrow.  I am awaiting a dope-slap from EricC. <===nst] 

 

2- Is behavior compositional? e.g. squawking, pecking, clawing behavioral "atoms" compose to an anti-polecat behavioral composition? (thinking of some kind of analog with atom --> molecule --> cell -- organism)

[NST===>I don’t understand “compose” in this context. <===nst] 

 

3- If meaning | signalling | intention is a required aspect of behavior, from whence it cometh?

[NST===>In the paper just published, I argued that a sign cannot be understood in the absence of an intention, but on the logic just above, I think one can carve out behaiors without identifying their intentions. <===nst] 

 

4- is "behaviorism" necessarily a subset of semiology?

[NST===>I think you could argue that much of my career has been spent trying to make semeiology a subset of behaviorism.  I could supply several publications, but I am sure you are all tired of my doing that, so I’ll just link one <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333455804_SIGNS_AND_DESIGNS> .<===nst] 

 

5- If behavior is compositional, are there rules or regularities of composition?

[NST===>I am beginning to think I will like this metaphor when I understand it.  Please say more. Are you asking if there is a grammar of behavioral sequencing?  Certainly that is true of all behavior that is communicative, and perhaps of any telic behavior, since to be telic, behavior must be organized into repeatable “higher” (or deeper) spacio-temporal patterns<===nst] 

 

6- Can culture be seen as a collection of allowable patterns of composed behaviors?

 

7- Is it necessary to have a well developed discipline of what is observed outside the black box before attempting to infer what is within and whatever that might be, its relation to what is observed outside?[NST===>You must have rules for how to deploy the metaphor of “inside”.  In science, the deployment of metaphors must be rigorous and, ultimately, falsifiable.  <===nst]  

 

davew

 

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