[FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Dear Glen and EricS

 

My friends are all too busy, so I have to turn to my frenemies for help. 

 

My palaver about epiphenomena grows out a much larger project: to identify
the resemblance among a bunch of concepts loosely related to the idea of  an
epiphenomenon.  Since the word has started to get us into trouble, I have
been searching around for another.  How about "inadvertent"?  To "advert" to
something is to orient toward it, to turn toward it, to point at it.
INadvertent consequences are those of an action toward which the action
itself did not point.  Since, in my lingo, the goal of an action is that
toward which it points, we are speaking of the consequences of an action
which were not among that action's goals.   These we will call
"inadvertents", "which is ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers."  Now as
the concept of exaptation makes clear, whether a trait is an advertent or an
inadvertent depends on the context of its design.  Thus a trait evolved
inadvertently in the contest of competition at the kill (the pseudo=penis of
the female hyena) can become an advertent within the context of dominance
display.  

 

The concept gnaws at me, these days, because so much about old age is
"inadvertent".  That was George William's theory of senescence: that the
ills of old age are the inadvertent consequences of the adaptations of the
young.  Inadvertency seems to be a key to so many confusions in psychology,
philosophy, and even biology.   Think about the distinction between
"intension" and "extension".  (Poor Lady Astor!)  Think about
"intentionality" generally.  Think about spandrels and exaptation (=
secondary advertency).  Think about the relation between functions and
purposes.  Think about the distinction between effects and side effects of
medicines.  This fundamental idea is everywhere in our thought.  Think about
the indeterminacy of metaphors.  Think about all the things a newly minted
program can do that it's designer did not intend it to do.  

 

Now, the piece I want to write  and which you (over your dead bodies) have
been helping me write, will hold a Wittgensteinian "family" reunion among
all these instances of inadvertency and try to discover if they are all of a
piece and if there is anything useful to be said about them all.  

 

My first question of you, two, is, Do you see this project as useful? Do you
see a benefit in such family reunions?  Would you find such a piece, once
written, to be of any use in your own thinking? The question is of
importance to me because, cantankerous as you sometimes are, I find your
opinions on such matters to be of great use, and I fear that your opinion
will be that such projects are  nugatory.  "Words, words, WORDS!", you will
say.  This will be a disappointment to me because two of the pieces of
writing I am proudest of are those that showed the concepts of gene and
adaptation belonged to the family of intensional concepts in psychology and
those that showed that D.S.Wilson's concept of trait group selection was not
an example of selection at all, but a run-of-the-mill instance of
quantitative inheritance.  In other words, I think  there is some value in
rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and you do not.  

 

In case anybody wants to discuss any of this  in vPerson I am going to try
to be at friam between 9 and 11 tomorrow.  

 

All the best, 

 

Nick 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nick Thompson

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

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

 

 

 

Nick Thompson

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

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

 

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