[FRIAM] Eternal questions

Thu Aug 26 12:34:46 EDT 2021

I hope EricC picks this up.  He has been too absent lately.  Damn him for having gotten an interesting job. 

I guess I think in levels of organization, and my rants are always of the form, Grant Each Level Its Due and Do Not Confuse Them.  So you can discuss the amygdala all you want, but you still have not described, or identified, fear.   

So, you ask, how would a person of my persuasion go about explaining the relation between the molecules in my skin  and the excitation of those elections that produce on my screen, what I am writing.  Never mind the socalled hard problem (the problem of the soul). Let’s figure out a way to talk about that.  

Or for that matter, let’s make it even simpler:  Let’s talk about the relation between the molecules of a cue  ball that result in the motion of the eightball into a pocket and the loss of the game.   Let’s even do some spherical cowing here and assume that one, and only one molecule of the cue ball touches one and only one molecule of the eightball.  Is this a good model?   Have I understood the question right?  

I don’t think Nick should say “I am my fear.”  I think he should say “I am the sum total of all the things that I do and that fear is one of the things I do”.   Or, perhaps, to put it in terms of experience-monism, “I am all that I experience and when I experience my flight behavior in relation to my experience of my circumstances I experience my fear.”  

I have to get back to that message from EricS that I bungled my response to. 

Nick 

Nick Thompson

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2021 11:24 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Eternal questions

Very nice! What I keep *wanting* to hear from Nick or EricC is a mechanism by which very tiny, very fast processes inside the body interact with very tiny, very fast processes outside the body. I.e. a demonstration (or simply rhetoric) of membrane openness (permeability, lack of closure). I.e. not all tiny/fast processes are bundled up into larger/slower processes at the interface between inside and outside.

If they made that (inherently compositional) argument, then ... then then then, we could talk about a taxonomy of process from tiny/fast to huge/slow, across spatiotemporal and functional scales. And with such a taxonomy, we could talk about which ones facilitate the Markovian processes EricS mentioned, required to successfully challenge "the hard problem" from a behaviorist perspective.

On 8/26/21 8:05 AM, Curt McNamara wrote:

> Bucky Fuller on apprehension / comprehension of systems:

>  <http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/figs/f0901.html> http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/figs/f0901.html 

> < <http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/figs/f0901.html> http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/figs/f0901.html>

> 

> We ignore larger / slower frequencies. We also ignore smaller / faster frequencies.

>  <http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/p0600.html#509.01> http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/p0600.html#509.01 

> < <http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/p0600.html#509.01> http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/s05/p0600.html#509.01>

> 

>            Curt

> 

> On Thu, Aug 26, 2021 at 9:55 AM uǝlƃ ☤>$ < <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com%20%3cmailto:gepropella at gmail.com> gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>> wrote:

> 

>     Ouch! Dude. No! 8^D You're committing the same sin Nick commits. To say we "are" our emotions ignores the composition, the algebra by which parts compose the whole.

> 

>     The point is the very high order conscious *attention* to lower order frequencies. Not all is one. There are many parts to organize. How are they organized?

> 

>     On 8/26/21 7:50 AM, Steve Smith wrote:

>     >

>     >>  E.g. when Bob wakes up startled, he interprets the situation into "fear". But when Sally wakes up startled, she interprets the situation into "excitement" or some other /a priori/, socially limiting, filter category.

>     > Thus my earlier suggestion that "we" "are" our emotions?   Bob *is* his

>     > propensity to read the lower-level response of "startlement" (closer to

>     > autonomic) to "fear" (closer to choice).   Sally also as "excitement".

> 

> 

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