[FRIAM] Friday Fodder

Sat Mar 27 13:09:46 EDT 2021

Dear Eric, 

Use your words!  Tell me how you FEEL!  (};-)]

N

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

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

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Eric Charles
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 7:43 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

In Friday's meeting I apologized to Jon that I hadn't given him a proper reply to his interesting prods, but that Nick's comments had somehow mentally blocked me from doing so. Nick said: "For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense." 

I promise Jon a good reply later this weekend, as I get past that blockage with the following:

Look, prick, there are some very different discussions to be had here, and pretending they are all the same discussion doesn't help anyone. The philosophical monist doesn't get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in perception any more than they get to pretend there is no mechanism involved in a bridge bearing weight. 

Indirect-perception happens all the time. Looking at my wall right now, I see a picture of Christi at our wedding. To me that picture re-presents her, and that event, and if there is any sense in which I "perceive" her while looking at the picture, that perception is not-direct, it is mediated by the six-inch tall, flat, still, image. Separately, when I turn my head about 15 degrees to the right, I see a walk-through-able doorway, my open-able fridge door, a coffee-cup-put-onable counter-top, a navigable hallway leading to my family room, etc. Need I tell the same type of story about all of those things that I told about seeing Christi in our wedding picture? Are all my perceptions mediated in that same sort of way? Or is there some sense in which I perceive most objects and events around me more directly than that? 

To answer those question, Gibson innovated an impressive array of conceptual elements, including the idea of the ambient energy arrays as ecological elements, invariants structures in those array, specificity as a property of a subset of those invariants, and an analysis of the evolutionary and developmental ways in which organisms can attune to those specifying-invariants, and how all that comes together to allow organisms to behave accurately with respect to the objects and events around them. And all of that stands as a huge contribution to the literature, regardless of anyone's thoughts about the particular term "direct perception" and it's history; especially if one is somehow trying to approach that term absent recognition of its multi-century history. Gibson's description of the perceptual mechanism shows how we can explain organism's perception of the functional implications of objects and events, without (in the course of that explanation) punching the tar-baby of picture perception and getting stuck with a dualistic cartesian theatre. 

That explanation connects strongly with the literatures on dynamics system, perceptual control theory, agent based modeling, and others. And in a world where most people in the field are still arguing that all perception is indirect, it makes sense to label what Gibson is doing a theory of direct perception. Your suggestion that it is a moral betrayal of values to call it anything other than "perception" with no modifier, is dumb. 

Why not just call your system "The Design Perspective"?!? Or to just pick one of those words? The answer is simple: Because "Natural Design" distinguishes your approach from those you are trying to chastise, and by-sheer-virtue-of-label connects your approach with the literature on "Natural Selection". Other people get to do things like that too. Gibson's work fits within the long tradition of trying to defend the possibility of direct perception, and there's nothing wrong with him and his supporters making that clear. 

AND even though I started out by saying there are different conversations to be had, they are not completely unconnected. You don't get to do the bullshit Kantian move (that Peirce and so many other philosophers seems to follow) of simply declaring the issues unrelated - that there is a scientific psychology and a metaphysical psychology and never the twain shall meet. No matter how much it seems like those should be two separate things, either the scientific psychology can (ultimately) handle the content of the metaphysical psychology or both sides are just blowing wind. So, if you want to argue for a monist world, you can't go around taking a giant dump on the work of anyone trying to figure out how we can have mechanisms in such a world. Whatever it is that people are -- physical people, in a physical world -- those hunks of meat have to be able, through some process of dynamic interaction with their surroundings, to do whatever it is your philosophy says they are doing. 

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 6:40 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Jon, 

Say more! I don't yet see the connection.  

For me, Gibson hopelessly misunderstands his monist roots.  Direct perception is either a tautology or nonsense.  If one is dualist, and separates the world from our perception of it, then it is nonsense.  If one is a monist, then all experience is direct and calling it "direct" is wasted breath.   There, EricC, I have finally said it! 

Still pondering your last contribution to the writing thread. 

N
Nick Thompson
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of jon zingale
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2021 4:02 PM
To: friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Friday Fodder

"""
I feel like I completely understand your problem, but cannot solve it.  You point to, what is for me, the most  bemusing problem in evolutionary theory, the evolution of natural selection.  Given the developmental entanglement of traits, how do they become modules for the purpose of selection.  The tension between developmental biologists and Dawkins-like biologists is around this poing.  Nobody disagrees that there is a lot of entanglement and nobody disagrees that some traits get selected.  I agree that the burden of proof lies on the side of selection theorist to explain how selection itself is possible!  This what I find so tempting about Stephen’s energy flow
ideas.   Is there a “least action” explanation for modularity?
"""

Similarly, is this a place where SteveG-style descriptions will meet Gibson-style explanations?

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