[FRIAM] Could this possibly be true?
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Thu Sep 16 17:42:20 EDT 2021
NST -
In my (lame) pursuit of enlightenment I find that pleasure and pain
start to muddle together with all other less-judged experiences...
slipping into the flow of "what is"... and those experiences become
more and more ineffable or more apropos, less effing effable?
- SAS
> Great. That is indeed the weakest point in my argument. It is the
> central argument of Sober and Wilson’s UNTO OTHERS
> <https://www.amazon.com/Unto-Others-Evolution-Psychology-Unselfish/dp/0674930479/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=wilson+and+sober+unto+others&qid=1631822440&sr=8-1https://www.bing.com/search?q=amazon+com&form=IENTNB&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&msnews=1&refig=01d8e6a6f68f4e79c1b939b52a4e26a6&sp=1&ghc=1&filters=ufn%3A%22amazon+com%22+sid%3A%22ce00286a-e903-ff2c-7dac-b49bd707399c%22&qs=MB&pq=ama&sc=8-3&cvid=01d8e6a6f68f4e79c1b939b52a4e26a6>.
> I hate (and have done so repeatedly in print) confusing tautologies
> with statements of fact. So this is indeed my petard your are
> threatening to hoist me on.
>
>
>
> First, let me stipulate that there are pain motives, and that pain is
> not the cessation of pleasure, nor pleasure the cessation of pain. I
> assume that that stipulation will not change your question, right?
>
>
>
> Hearing me try to wiggle out of the tautology problem will require a
> lot of patience of you. It will lead us into the dreadful confusion
> of “the hard problem” and “effing the ineffable”. Only for the strong
> of heart. I predict that you will say, at some point, “Nick, you are
> confusing what a feeling does with what a feeling is, and only I can
> know what my feelings are.” And I will say, “No. No. That is
> nonsense, Marcus, and even you know it. Anybody who has ever been
> married or even owned a dog knows that others can often gauge feelings
> better than the feeling-owner.” And you will reply, “No, no,
> Nicholas, you idiot. Yours will be a INFERENCE of my feelings; I know
> my own feelings directly, without inference.” And I will say, “No.
> No, Marcus. A thousand experiments in psychology will demonstrate
> that the feeling owner is often wrong about his own feelings.” And
> notice that I am at that point edging you up to the tautology line
> because one way to define feelings that ends the argument is to say
> that my feelings just are those experiences that I and I alone can
> know uniquely. Frank and Bruce Simon and I have been over this
> ground a gazillion times.
>
>
>
> It’s possible we can avoid it, but I don’t think so. To test the
> proposition, ask yourself: if we stripped the notion of pleasure of
> all association with how a pleasure feels uniquely and momentarily to
> you, would you still raise the question you do. Would you still ask,
>
>
>
> “Does all conscious (even synthetic) life need to be driven by a
> pleasure motive? This seems to be Nick’s claim. I expect the way
> this argument plays out is that, e.g., altruism is defined to “feel
> good”. It is tautological.
>
> "
>
> If that question disappears for you under those circumstances, then I
> can simply admit that a pleasure is just the behavioral transition
> that occurs upon the achievement of set of circumstances, and escape
> the tautology by defining a goal as the organization of behavior that
> points to a set of circumstances.
>
>
>
> So. Where are we an the socalled Hard Problem. I know you have
> probably said, but, to be honest, I don’t remember.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Marcus Daniels
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 16, 2021 3:48 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Could this possibly be true?
>
>
>
> Does all conscious (even synthetic) life need to be driven by a
> pleasure motive? This seems to be Nick’s claim. I expect the way
> this argument plays out is that, e.g., altruism is defined to “feel
> good”. It is tautological.
>
>
>
> On Sep 16, 2021, at 12:22 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> some of us might be writing only to hear ourselves gumflap?
>
>
>
> Pfffft! All of us are and all of us aren’t.
>
>
>
> For my own case, I am writing here to develop my thinking, so that
> it may someday coalesce into something that I publish, with, or
> without, others. That that enterprise is not entirely nugatory
> is evident in my writing which is both stable and evolving and
> usually does involve others.
>
>
>
> I stipulate that you all may be being forced to serve in a cause
> you may not have signed up for. I guess this is the point where a
> glen would say, “Live with it!”
>
>
>
> n
>
>
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith
> *Sent:* Thursday, September 16, 2021 3:06 PM
> *To:* friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Could this possibly be true?
>
>
>
>
>
> On 9/16/21 10:35 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com
> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Just so’s you know,
>
>
>
> I took it from this email thread, where it pretty much stood
> alone.
>
>
>
> And remember. Y ou (we) aren’t just writing to one another.
> You (we) are writing to 300 other people.
>
> And according to Glen a few threads in the weft-weave back, some
> of us might be writing only to hear ourselves gumflap? I think
> that (his characterization or my characterization of his
> characterization or both) might be hyperbolic.
>
>
>
>
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