[FRIAM] Behavior??

[Steve Smith]

and....

"Sometimes a w/blink is just a w/blink?"

> Nick,
>
> You said — "I don't think anybody who was familiar with eye movements
> would ever take a wink for a blink."
>
> I can quickly think of hundreds of examples of this not being true.
> One, I watched a man lose a lot of money in a poker game because he
> misinterpreted a blink (sans signal content) as if it were a wink
> (with signal content), thinking that the spasm of the eyelid was a
> "tell" a kind of "winking to one's inner self."
>
> But the interesting problem is with winks that are winks. How can you
> tell, absent context and cultural experience, if the wink were
> 'sincere', 'conspiritorial', 'seductive', 'parody', 'meta-parody',
> 'meta-anti-wink', etc.
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sat, May 16, 2020, at 11:29 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi, David,
>>
>>  
>>
>> While I have great admiration for Ryle, and use his notion of levels
>> of action gratefully, I think he and Geertz are just dead wrong here
>> in their premise.  I don't think anybody who was familiar with eye
>> movements would ever take a wink for a blink.  But the basic point is
>> still right:  a wink implies higher level of organization that a wink
>> and a fake wink implies a higher level of organization still.  Or, I
>> think, Geertz would call it "deeper".  "A deeper description". 
>>
>>  
>>
>> Now on to ethology.  As usual, I am going to punish your interest
>> with an article.  Here you get the entire history of ethology
>> <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281346463_Ethology_and_the_birth_of_comparative_teleonomy>,
>> is capsulated in three laws -- about 10 pages or so.  Not a bad a
>> bargain, eh?  In fact, if you just read from section 4.0 on, you will
>> get the examples, which contain most of the impact.  They are very
>> like the turkey/polcat example that you provide, one I had never
>> heard before!  Perfect! 
>>
>>  
>>
>> Please see larding below.
>>
>>  
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>>  
>>
>> 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??
>>
>>  
>>
>> Glen made a comment,  "humans don't have intention when they wink
>> sarcastically." This triggered a memory of Clifford Geertz channeling
>> Gilbert Ryle. Just before seeing Glen's comment I was reading a book
>> on Influence and encountered some ethology and together they prompted
>> a whole series of questions about behavior.
>>
>>  
>>
>> First a quote from Geertz/Ryle
>>
>>  
>>
>> "Consider two boys rapidly contracting the eyelids of their right
>> eyes. In one, this is an involuntary twitch; in the other, a
>> conspiritorial signal to a friend. The two movements are, as
>> movements, identical; from an I-am-a-camera, "phenomenalistic"
>> observation of them alone, one could not tell which was twitch and
>> which was wink ... Yet the difference, however unphotographical, is
>> vast. ... the winker is communicating ... 1) deliberately, 2) to
>> someone in particular, 3) to impart a particular message, 4)
>> according to a socially established code, and 5) without the
>> cognizance of the rest of the company. That however is just the
>> beginning. Suppose a third boy winks in an amateurish, clumsy, and
>> obvious manner — he is parodying the wink ... not conspiracy, but
>> ridicule is in the air. Complexities are possible, if not practically
>> without end, at least logically so."
>>
>>  
>>
>> Then the ethology material
>>
>>  
>>
>> "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?
>>
>>    1B. is the X-factor an intentional signal? or is it "meaning." is
>> intention required?
>>
>>  
>>
>> 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)
>>
>>  
>>
>> 3- If meaning | signalling | intention is a required aspect of
>> behavior, from whence it cometh?
>>
>>  
>>
>> 4- is "behaviorism" necessarily a subset of semiology?
>>
>>  
>>
>> 5- If behavior is compositional, are there rules or regularities of
>> composition?
>>
>>  
>>
>> 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?
>>
>>  
>>
>> davew
>>
>>  
>>
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>
>
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