[FRIAM] Nick's monism kick

[Eric Charles]

Frank,  let's run with that!

Assuming it was stupid to bring up atoms, how SHOULD the student respond?
Verbally and behaviorally?

How do you typically respond to stupid advice? :- )

On Fri, Sep 30, 2022, 6:19 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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