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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Dear Glen and EricS<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>My friends are all too busy, so I have to turn to my frenemies for help. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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 <i>selection</i> at all, but a run-of-the-mill instance of quantitative <i>inheritance</i>. In other words, I think there is some value in rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and you do not. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>All the best, <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Nick <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Nick Thompson<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com">ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Nick Thompson<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com">ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>