[FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

Thu Sep 23 16:17:29 EDT 2021

Glen, 

I despair when people whom I respect  disparage themselves.  "If Glen is a hack," I think, "what kind of a worm am I?"  I look at it this way.  We are all good at somethings, bad at others.  To the extent our strengths and weaknesses can compensate for one another, then that is a good thing.   Each offers what he has to offer; each takes from the pile of offerings what he needs.  It's a kind  of intellectual communism.  

I do what to open a short side bar with you concerning "ontology."  I don't think the distinction between phenomenon and epiphenomenon was ever "ontological" with me.    Nor is the distinction between advertents and inadvertents.  So that makes me worry that we are using the term in different senses.   My understanding is that one's ontology is everything that one assumes to be.   Ontologies can be explicit or inexplicit. So, I can have an ontology and not know it.  You, therefore, have some considerable power to convince me of what my ontology actual is.  To the extent my ontology is explicit, it is a monist experience monism that insists that we live in a world of signs ... experiences that signify other experiences, but I don't think that ontology commits me to a world of advertents and inadvertents. 

 Now I have heard you software wizards speak from time to time of "ontologies", and I am guessing that the word has some added spin for you that it does not for me.   So, I would like to straighten that out, if we could.  When you say that you fear the distinction is ontological with me, what exactly is it that you fear? 

By the way, as a behaviorist, I am inclined to more to make the error that human most enterprizes are inadvertent, then to make the error that biological ones are advertent.  

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, September 23, 2021 1:40 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

Well, EricS is a scholar, which means he will respond responsibly and with content. I, by contrast, am a hack and will respond irresponsibly and off-the-cuff. 8^D

I *do* think the project worthwhile, but only if you abandon any ontological or metaphysical commitment to the distinction between advertent and inadvertent. For example, there seems to me a clear difference between exaptation and the unintended usage of a computer program. Similarly, I think there's a clear difference between exaptation and new use approvals or patents for drugs.

As best I can tell, the difference is the lack of an Intelligent Designer for evolution ... or with less triggering language, the lack of a "small model" (by contrast with Rosen's "largest model"). When Pfizer discovers a drug (mostly by accident ... but a sweat-laden accident), it's a very purposeful, intelligent, perspective laden thing (mostly money, but some honest Do Gooding interwoven). When a team of programmers builds a [soft|hard]ware service, it's an intelligently designed thing.

When the amorphous cloud of nothingness that is "selection pressure" builds a trait, it is not an intelligently designed thing, it MAY NOT EVEN BE an optimized thing ... where "otpimized" means perspective-laden, objective-focused, etc. I'm not saying it *is not* an optimized thing. I'm saying it may not be. That's why I encourage you to abandon the ontological commitment.

This sort of thing is discussed quite a bit in the open-ended evolution literature, which you may be more familiar with than I am. So, if you would play *that* game, I think you'd make some progress.

On 9/23/21 10:18 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> 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.

--
"Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
☤>$ uǝlƃ

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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, September 23, 2021 1:40 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Advertents and Inadvertents

Well, EricS is a scholar, which means he will respond responsibly and with content. I, by contrast, am a hack and will respond irresponsibly and off-the-cuff. 8^D

I *do* think the project worthwhile, but only if you abandon any ontological or metaphysical commitment to the distinction between advertent and inadvertent. For example, there seems to me a clear difference between exaptation and the unintended usage of a computer program. Similarly, I think there's a clear difference between exaptation and new use approvals or patents for drugs.

As best I can tell, the difference is the lack of an Intelligent Designer for evolution ... or with less triggering language, the lack of a "small model" (by contrast with Rosen's "largest model"). When Pfizer discovers a drug (mostly by accident ... but a sweat-laden accident), it's a very purposeful, intelligent, perspective laden thing (mostly money, but some honest Do Gooding interwoven). When a team of programmers builds a [soft|hard]ware service, it's an intelligently designed thing.

When the amorphous cloud of nothingness that is "selection pressure" builds a trait, it is not an intelligently designed thing, it MAY NOT EVEN BE an optimized thing ... where "otpimized" means perspective-laden, objective-focused, etc. I'm not saying it *is not* an optimized thing. I'm saying it may not be. That's why I encourage you to abandon the ontological commitment.

This sort of thing is discussed quite a bit in the open-ended evolution literature, which you may be more familiar with than I am. So, if you would play *that* game, I think you'd make some progress.

On 9/23/21 10:18 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> 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.

--
"Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
☤>$ uǝlƃ

.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives:
 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
 1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/