[FRIAM] Nick's monism kick

Fri Sep 30 18:18:45 EDT 2022

My conclusion:  the Lab Tech was dumb for mentioning atoms.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Wed, Sep 28, 2022, 3:21 PM Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Two preliminaries:
> 1) For what it's worth, I am trying to back Nick into a different corner
> than the one Mike thinks I am.... but Mike is correct in seeing that I
> don't want to let Nick weasel out of the confrontation. It is perfectly
> valid for Nick to point out that he is proud of any student who takes
> *anything *from one course to another, but that doesn't speak to whether
> he would be happy or not seeing this particular interaction play out due to
> the effects of his teaching.
>
> 2) Both Mike and Nick want to read into the lab tech something I was
> exactly excluding from the lab tech's reaction - a sophisticated
> understanding of the situation that matches what they would like to have a
> student glean from their classrooms. In the email I am currently replying
> to, Nick says something like "I don't recognize the student as saying what
> I would say" and to that I reply "Exactly!" The student isn't a stand in
> for you, they are a person your teachings have significantly influenced.
> The student, *like you*, doesn't see the role that "real" or "fact" play in
> the conversation, and *like you* any hint of "essentialism", especially
> connected with something that sounds like a crude "materialism", makes her
> scoff.
>
> The basics of the initial scenario are:
> A lab tech is giving a safety warning. The student, rather than complying
> with that warning, tries to initiate a conversation about how the words
> used in the warning make it seem like maybe the lab tech could learn a
> thing or two about philosophy from Dr. Thompson (a typical
> sophomoric-sophomore way to respond). The lab tech doesn't give a shit
> about any of that, and reiterates the safety warning, elaborating it in
> ways that make sense *to him* by adding in words like "fact" and "atoms".
> The student scoffs even harder now, because this poor fellow can't even
> understand that she is trying to help him learn how to think better. As you
> listen in the hall, the student's responses might not be *exactly* what you
> would say in her place, but it is obvious that she is *trying* to do the
> type of conversation you modeled in your class, and that what is happening
> is due to your influence as an instructor. The culmination of the back and
> forth is that, because the student is doing everything other than complying
> with the warning, the lab tech - in his role as the person charged with
> maintaining lab safety - kicks her out of the chemistry lab.
>
> And the basic questions to Nick were:
> How do you feel witnessing that? Proud, worried, confused? Does it sound
> like the student was getting the message you intended, or has the intended
> message gone awry?
>
> In the second version, I tried to make the culmination of the interaction
> even more extreme, so that the key aspect of the interaction - that the
> student was responding to a safety warning by talking philosophy - was even
> more obvious. As the conversation continues, the increasingly exasperated
> lab tech brings in more and more potentially-irrelevant terms and concepts
> for the student to smugly nit pick, until eventually the
> thing-being-warned-about actually occurs and several people are grievously
> injured.
>
> How was I hoping Nick would respond? I was hoping it would look something
> like this:
> 1) No, I would *not *be happy if I overheard that interaction.
> 2) She misunderstood X and/or she apparently didn't grok the part where I
> explained Y.
> 3) If I had done a better job in the classroom, she would have cared about
> understanding what his warning meant in terms of practice. (And I imagine
> anything that Nick adds to illustrate this point would lines up pretty well
> with Mike's dialog.)
>
> If Nick has finally wrapped his head around the scene being played out, I
> still want to hear from him what X and/or Y are. GIVEN that the student
> seems to have a reasonable - if imperfect - understanding of the
> conversational side of things, i.e., given that the student is saying
> things to the Lab Tech that are very close to what you (Nick) would say in
> the student's place, what exactly is it that she failed to appreciate about
> the point of view you were presenting?
> <echarles at american.edu>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 11:51 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Friends,
>>
>>
>>
>> Eric has prompted me to wade into this thread, but I confess I have not
>> well understood the issues, even from the start.   So much of subsequent
>> characterization of my position feels so foreign to me that I don’t now how
>> to
>>
>> relate it to what I believe.   As understand the three of us, Mike is
>> trying to represent the True Peirce, I am trying to represent the Peirce
>> position insofar as it is a monist position, and Eric is trying to
>> understand Peirce insofar as he agrees with James.  But I cannot even
>> follow those usual themes through the present discussion.
>>
>>
>>
>> Even the original hypothetical was confusing to me.  Of course the web of
>> terms employed by the lab tech, Pragmatically viewed, encapsulates a broad
>> network of knowledge concerning when things explode.  And I suppose,
>> therefore, Mike might see me as anti-Pragmatic (and merely pragmatic) when
>> I stress the relation between mixing THESE flasks under THESE CIRCUMSTANCES
>> and bad consequences.  I accept that criticism, but I don’t really see him
>> making it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Lab tech: What? I'm talking about a real danger, and I need you to be
>> careful so it doesn't happen.
>> Student: Yes, exactly, you believe that those experiences will follow if
>> certain experiences happen now.
>> Lab tech: Huh? No. I'm telling you how the physical atoms work. I mean...
>> yes... the part about the explosion is something that would happen under
>> certain circumstances in the future, *but the chemical reaction and the
>> damage it could cause are well known facts.*
>>
>>
>>
>> I never really understood how the words real and facts are working in
>> this hypothetical and why the Labtech thinks that their safety, in the
>> instant, is better guaranteed by knowing about atoms, than by knowing to
>> keep the two flasks separate.
>>
>>
>>
>> As for the rest, I am completely lost.  I really need to pull it out into
>> a single document and study the damn thing.  I am torn between an impulse
>> to capitalize on Mike’s participation and the fact that I have much else on
>> my plate right now.
>>
>>
>>
>> Are we perhaps writing something here?   If so, I will  try to do my best
>> to put aside everything else and pitch in.
>>
>>
>>
>> I love you guys, honest!
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>> Nick Thompson
>>
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 30, 2022 12:47 PM
>> *To:* Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com>
>> *Cc:* M. D. Bybee <mikebybee at earthlink.net>; Jon Zingale <
>> jonzingale at gmail.com>; friam at redfish.com
>> *Subject:* Re: Nick's monism kick
>>
>>
>>
>> I am at the moment living in a remote colony of rich peoples shacks,
>> Hence no Internet.
>>
>>
>>
>> But I like the question so well I am forwarding it to the list. I will
>> get back to you when I do not have to thumb my answer.
>>
>> N
>>
>> Sent from my Dumb Phone
>>
>>
>> On Aug 30, 2022, at 11:27 AM, Eric Charles <
>> eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>> Nick,
>>
>> You have been asking for "an assignment", and I think I finally thought
>> of a good one for you. (And I think it might spur some interesting
>> discussion, which is why others are copied here.)
>>
>>
>>
>> Imagine that you are still teaching at Clark, and that you have been
>> tentatively including your current monism more and more in some of the
>> classes. When walking by the Chemistry labs, you recognize the voice of an
>> enthusiastic student you had last quarter,, and you start to ease drop. The
>> conversation is as follows:
>>
>> Lab tech: Be careful with that! If it mixes with the potassium solution,
>> it can become explosive, we would have to evacuate the building.
>> Student: What do you mean?
>> Lab tech: If the potassium mixes with chlorides at the right ratio, then
>> we are *probably* safe while it is in solution, but if it dries up, it is a
>> hard-core explosive and it wouldn't take much to level the whole building.
>> We would have to take that threat seriously, and evacuate the building
>> until I made the solution safe.
>> Student: Oh, a predictions about future experiences, I like those!
>> Lab tech: What? I'm talking about a real danger, and I need you to be
>> careful so it doesn't happen.
>> Student: Yes, exactly, you believe that those experiences will follow if
>> certain experiences happen now.
>> Lab tech: Huh? No. I'm telling you how the physical atoms work. I mean...
>> yes... the part about the explosion is something that would happen under
>> certain circumstances in the future, but the chemical reaction and the
>> damage it could cause are well known facts. Look, man, if you aren't here
>> to learn how to be safe with the chemicals, then maybe you should just
>> leave.
>> Student: Wait, seriously? You aren't some kind of *materialist* are
>> you?!? You know anything we could talk about are *just* experiences, right?
>> It's experiences all the way down!
>>
>> Listening in, you can tell that the student is taking this line based on
>> your influence, because it sounds like things they were kinda-sorta
>> starting to grock in your class.
>>
>> How do you feel hearing that? Proud, worried, confused? Does it sound
>> like the student was getting the message you intended, or has the intended
>> message gone awry? Would you have said something similar to the Lab Tech
>> under the same circumstances?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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