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Glen -<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:ed9c4eb8-397a-a813-12ab-ced5fa1e7e69@gmail.com">Your use
of "regret" is a dead giveaway to your narrativity. A regret
operator (even in formal settings) is only useful in contexts that
assume both free-will and narrativity. </blockquote>
I don't know that *I* experience a lot of regret, mostly because I
recognize that anything I might "regret" in my own life fits
squarely in the realm of "it seemed like a good idea at the time",
even if my imagination/memory might be prone to frame it as
something I might have decided/felt/acted otherwise on. I *do*,
however, recognize that the use of the "regret operator" is pretty
pervasive in common discourse (codes) and therefore likely in
world-view (modes). Your (constructive) criticism of these modes
and codes continues to be helpful (if I have any free will which
seeks or accepts help in it's actions).<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:ed9c4eb8-397a-a813-12ab-ced5fa1e7e69@gmail.com">Marcus'
link citing our oft-discussed use of psychedelics to raise the
"heat" in our "annealing" minds also targets that narrativity and
regret operators. There's no reason to have a regret operator
*unless* you can change your ephemeris with interventions like,
say, a massive dose of LSD or a 3 day stay in an isolation tank.
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>I believe the (imagined?) utility of a regret operator fits
squarely in the camp of "free will". And in it's application in
the present-future decisions one might make. I certainly consider
it in the present all the time, even if I don't so much in the
past? I find myself thinking "I seem to have a spectrum of
alternative choices to make right now and some of them seem like
they would lead to regrets" so will likely avoid them out of hand,
even if I never get around to experiencing regret as such.
Various interventions (alcohol, meditation, discussion with an
adversary etc) might reduce the set of "avoid out of hand"
contemplations, some through your "heat of annealing" analogy and
some more through more deliberate hill-climbing. Again,
free-will. Maybe what I percieve as deliberate hill-climbing is
just the natural consequence of "heat" in an obscured dimension?
The language of Physics and Chemistry lie entirely there if the
language of Biology and Sociology seem to admit/assume will and
free-will.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>one of my more favorite tautologies: "Life is that which wills
to live amongst that which wills to live" (my misquote of Albert
Schweitzer).<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:ed9c4eb8-397a-a813-12ab-ced5fa1e7e69@gmail.com">
But Nick, EricC, Jon, and I have discussed (ad nauseum) the
difference between pragmati[ci]sm, where Peirce (vs the other
American Pragmatists) still carries some sort of
anti-nominalist/foundationalist idealism. I think the existence of
a regret operator in your reflective thought may depend on that
deeper structure more than it depends on conceptions of free-will
and narrativity.<br>
</blockquote>
I could probably use more help unpacking this... Or maybe I just
haven't read these conversations astutely enough (no regrets
though!).<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:ed9c4eb8-397a-a813-12ab-ced5fa1e7e69@gmail.com">
In a *very* open context, where not only the machinery changes as
it chunks along, but the objective[s] change[s] through the
iteration, regret can become locally scoped ... e.g. rather than
an octogenarian regretting what they did when they were 20, one
might only regret what one did 10 minutes ago but not regret the
events of years ago. With such a tightly scoped regret, we can
approach self-identified episodic personalities without being
anti-nominalist/foundationalist. The foundation of that locally
coherent self is simply "smaller" ... more particular, less
general, more context dependent than full narrativity.
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>I think this is a good (temporal) expose of the local/global
nature of emergence? Global order from local interactions?
References SteveG's reflections about "believe in the collective"
as I understand it.</p>
<p>As a sexegenarian, I find it hard to remember/understand the
context of my dodecagenarian self well enough to have any proper
regrets about actions/decisions made then. I agree that it is
more coherent for me to go back through these missives I offer up
here before (or after) I send them and have regrets (changes if I
do it before I hit send) due to the temporal (and therefore
hamming/network distance in the adjacent possible?) proximity than
the former example. Maybe this is just another example of being
stuck in the "illusion of free-will and narrativity"?</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
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