<div dir="auto">Steve<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Quibbles:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">An uncountable set is infinite. It's just that there are infinite sets with larger cardinality.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">There is only one tangent vector at a point along a differentiable curve, I believe.<br><br>Frank</div><div dir="auto"><br><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="auto">---<br>Frank C. Wimberly<br>140 Calle Ojo Feliz, <br>Santa Fe, NM 87505<br><br>505 670-9918<br>Santa Fe, NM</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Feb 18, 2023, 10:11 AM Steve Smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p><on a tangent from a tangent among tangents></p>
<p>Thanks to EricC for introducing the very idea of a <i>tangent</i>
to this discussion. I would propose that "mental stuff" might be
characterized *by* tangents? The mathematical/geometric
definition of *tangent* tends to suggest a *reduction* of the
curve or arc or path at a specific point along it *to* the
direction components of that point/vector in phase space.</p>
<p>When we colloquially say something is a tangent (a geometric
metaphor for thought and discussion) we mean that at some point
along the path of logic/conversation/discussion/description
*another* path diverges but in fact follows the instantaneous or
point-localized vector and is one of an uncountable member of a
family of curves with that direction component. This implies
that it is relevant to the original (implied) path but somehow is
unexpected or a divergence from what *somebody* regards as the
original arc of the conversation?</p>
<p>In the spirit of an extravagant application of metaphor I
realized as I was trying to formulate *this tangent* that my
underlying model of human thought (individual and collective) is
registered on a high dimensional calculus of variations
conceit. And in deference to Glen's regular reminder to of us
of the risk of excess meaning (also Reese and Overton 1970) and
premature binding/registration, I do believe that there are
elements of a romantic/nostalgic force-fit in this game I play
here.</p>
<p>It feels to me as if at "every point in a conversation" that
there are a plethora (uncountable but not infiinite?) of possible
divergences and to be healthy (whatever that means) there needs to
be a tension between predictable and interesting (if those are
actual opposites?)...<br>
</p>
<p>Perhaps I am alone in this intuition/conception but the
collective conversation that I apprehend *here* and in the larger
world (exempli gratia: the news-stream/social-media milieu),
narrative arcs of "truth" feel to me be not unlike least action
paths or even Feynman path integrals. The superposition of
possible arcs/paths and something like
probability/possibility/plausability fields (family of curves
weighted by ???) within our (intersubjective ala Harari)
realities.<br>
</p>
<p>Listening to the "fake news media's" discussion of the "Faux
(Fox/Murdoch) News Media"'s troubles with the courts over the
Dominion Voting Machine ?Libel? suits gave me the distinct feeling
that the former is (at the very least) attempting to enforce some
sort of cause-effect rules on the news-sphere whilst the latter
(Murdoch++) is trying to carve a shape in rhetoric space which
fits a pre-determined grand narrative that fits some higher-order
agenda/model. Some of the circular logic exposed (where, for
example, the Trump-team would make a claim which Faux folks would
pick up and echo as "it has been suggested" and then Trump-echo
would call-respond with "the media has reported" and thus the
resonance in the echo chamber is triggered/tuned, feels like a
deliberate challenge to the prohibition of causal loops in
mechanics.<br>
</p>
<p>Of course, they would (and not without some merit) claim the same
of "everyone else" in media? Meanwhile the binary distribution
within our political spectrum suggests a tension between two equal
but disparate cosmologies which attract ideation and opinion to
those two "poles". <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>References: </p>
<blockquote><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haroun_and_the_Sea_of_Stories" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haroun_and_the_Sea_of_Stories</a><br>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel</a><br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<div>On 2/18/23 6:29 AM, Eric Charles wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr"><font color="#9900ff">I don't know what you mean by
"mental stuff", of course.</font><br clear="all">
<div>
<div dir="ltr" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Well... In
this context, I mean whatever the "psyche" part of
panpsychism entails. <br>
<br>
Given that I don't believe in disembodied minds,
I'm with you 100% on everything you do being "body
stuff". Which, presumably, leads to the empirical
question of what types of bodies do "psyche", and
where those types of bodies can be found. </span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">You say further
that: </span><font color="#9900ff">No. Neither the
dirt nor I do "mental stuff".<br>
</font><br>
</div>
<div>Well, now we have something to actually talk
about then! Dave West, unsurprisingly, stepped in
strongly on the side of dirt having psyche in at
least a rudimentary form, I presume he would assert
that you (Glen) do mental stuff too. Dave also
asserts that his belief in panpsychism <i>does</i> affect
how he lives in the world. Exactly to the extent
that his way of living in the world is made
different by the belief, panpsychism <i><u>is</u></i>
more than just something he says. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Steve's discussion about what it would feel like
to be the bit of dirt trampled beneath a particular
foot is a bit of a tangent - potentially interesting
in its own right. His discussion of when he,
personally, starts to attribute identity - and
potentially psyche - to clumps of inanimate stuff
seems directly on topic, especially as he too has
listed some ways his behaviors change when he
becomes engaged in those habits. </div>
<div dir="ltr"><br>
<div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 2:36
AM ⛧ glen <<a href="mailto:gepropella@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">gepropella@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Doubling
down on the incredulity fallacy? OK. Yes. There is something
it is like to be trampled dirt. I don't know what you mean by
"mental stuff", of course. I don't do any mental stuff as far
as I know. Everything I do is inherently "body stuff". Maybe
that's because I've experienced chronic pain my whole life.
Maybe some of you consistently live in a body free experience?
I've only experienced that a few times, e.g. running in a
fasted state. And I later suffered for that indulgent
delusion.<br>
<br>
No. Neither the dirt nor I do "mental stuff". So you need a
more concrete question. <br>
<br>
On February 16, 2023 6:04:17 PM PST, Eric Charles <<a href="mailto:eric.phillip.charles@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">eric.phillip.charles@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
>"an account of the seemingly analogous position of
panpsychism"<br>
><br>
>What is that more than something people say?<br>
><br>
>Do *you* experience the dirt at your feet as having a
mental life? If so,<br>
>tell me about it: What is the dirt like when it seems to
be doing mental<br>
>stuff? What kind of mental stuff is it doing?<br>
><br>
>If not: Have you seen anyone who earnestly thinks the dirt
is doing mental<br>
>stuff? If so, what were *they* like? How was that belief
pervasive in their<br>
>adjustments to the world? Based on your experiences with
that person, how<br>
>do you think your ways of acting in the world would change
if you adopted<br>
>such a position?<br>
><br>
><br>
><<a href="mailto:echarles@american.edu" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">echarles@american.edu</a>><br>
><br>
><br>
>On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 1:27 PM glen <<a href="mailto:gepropella@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">gepropella@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
><br>
>> I don't grok the context well enough to equivocate on
concepts like "have"<br>
>> and "category of being". But in response to Nick's
question: "What is there<br>
>> that animals do that demands us to invent categories
to explain their<br>
>> behavior?", my answer is "animals discretize the
ambient muck". So if<br>
>> categorization is somehow fundamentally related to
discretization, then<br>
>> animals clearly categorize in that sense.<br>
>><br>
>> I mean, all you have to do is consider the
frequencies of light the<br>
>> animals' eyeballs do or don't see. That's two
categories right there, the<br>
>> light they do see and the light they don't. Unless
there's some sophistry<br>
>> hidden behind the question, the answer seems clear.
Reflection on what one<br>
>> does and does not categorize isn't necessary. I could
even claim my truck<br>
>> discretizes fluids ... those that make it seize up
versus lubricate it,<br>
>> those that it burns vs those that stop it cold. Etc.
Maybe the question is<br>
>> better formulated as "What makes one impute
categories on another?" Clearly<br>
>> my truck doesn't impute categories on squirrels.<br>
>><br>
>> But Nick does follow that question with this
"experience" nonsense. So my<br>
>> guess is there *is* some sophistry behind the
question, similar to EricC's<br>
>> incredulous response to DaveW's question about
phenomenological composition<br>
>> of experience(s). What I find missing in Nick's (and
EricC's) distillation<br>
>> of experience monism is an account of the seemingly
analogous position of<br>
>> panpsychism. Were I a scholar, I might take such work
on myself. But I'm<br>
>> not and, hence, very much appreciate these
distillations of dead white<br>
>> men's metaphysics and will take what I can get. 8^D<br>
>><br>
>> On 2/16/23 09:22, Steve Smith wrote:<br>
>> > Might I offer some terminology reframing, or at
least ask for some<br>
>> additional explication?<br>
>> ><br>
>> > 1. I think "behaviours" would be all Nick's
Martians *could* observe?<br>
>> They would be inferring "experiences" from observed
behaviours?<br>
>> > 2. When we talk about "categories" here, are we
talking about<br>
>> "categories of being"? Ontologies, as it were?<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Regarding ErisS' reflections... I *do* think
that animals behave *as<br>
>> if* they "have categories", though I don't know what
it even means to say<br>
>> that they "have categories" in the way Aristotle and
his legacy-followers<br>
>> (e.g. us) do... I would suggest/suspect that dogs
and squirrels are in no<br>
>> way aware of these "categories" and that to say that
they do is a<br>
>> projection by (us) humans who have fabricated the
(useful in myriad<br>
>> contexts) of a category/Category/ontology. So in
that sense they do NOT<br>
>> *have* categories... I think in this
conception/thought-experiment we<br>
>> assume that Martians *would* and would be looking to
map their own<br>
>> ontologies onto the behaviour (and inferred
experiences and judgements?)<br>
>> of Terran animals?<br>
>> ><br>
>> > If I were to invert the subject/object relation,
I would suggest that it<br>
>> is "affordances" not "experiences" (or animals'
behaviours) we want to<br>
>> categorize into ontologies? It is what things are
"good for" that make<br>
>> them interesting/similar/different to living beings.
And "good for" is<br>
>> conditionally contextualized. My dog and cat both
find squirrels "good<br>
>> for" chasing, but so too for baby rabbits and skunks
(once).<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Or am I barking up the wrong set of reserved
lexicons?<br>
>> ><br>
>> > To segue (as I am wont to do), it feels like
this discussion parallels<br>
>> the one about LLMs where we train the hell out of
variations on learning<br>
>> classifier systems until they are as good as (or
better than) we (humans)<br>
>> are at predicting the next token in a string of
human-generated tokens (or<br>
>> synthesizing a string of tokens which humans cannot
distinguish from a<br>
>> string generated by another human, in particular one
with the proverbial<br>
>> 10,000 hours of specialized training). The fact
that or "ologies" tend to<br>
>> be recorded and organized as knowledge structures and
in fact usually<br>
>> *propogated* (taught/learnt) by the same makes us
want to believe (some of<br>
>> us) that hidden inside these LLMs are precisely the
same "ologies" we<br>
>> encode in our myriad textbooks and professional
journal articles?<br>
>> ><br>
>> > I think one of the questions that remains
present within this group's<br>
>> continued 'gurgitations is whether the organizations
we have conjured are<br>
>> particularly special, or just one of an infinitude of
superposed<br>
>> alternative formulations? And whether some of those
formulations are<br>
>> acutely occult and/or abstract and whether the
existing (accepted)<br>
>> formulations (e.g. Western Philosophy and Science,
etc) are uniquely (and<br>
>> exclusively or at least optimally) capable of
capturing/describing what is<br>
>> "really real" (nod to George Berkeley).<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Some here (self included) may often suggest that
such formulation is at<br>
>> best a coincidence of history and as well as it
"covers" a description of<br>
>> "reality", it is by circumstance and probably by
abstract conception ("all<br>
>> models are wrong...") incomplete and in error. But
nevertheless still<br>
>> useful...<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Maybe another way of reframing Nick's question
(on a tangent) is to ask<br>
>> whether the Barsoomians had their own Aristotle to
conceive of<br>
>> Categories? Or did they train their telescopes on
ancient Greece and<br>
>> learn Latin Lip Reading and adopt one or more the
Greek's philosophical<br>
>> traditions? And then, did the gas-balloon creatures
floating in the<br>
>> atmosphere-substance of Jupiter observe the Martians'
who had observed the<br>
>> Greeks and thereby come up with their own
Categories. Maybe it was those<br>
>> creatures who beamed these abstractions straight into
the neural tissue of<br>
>> the Aristotelians and Platonists? Do gas-balloon
creatures even have<br>
>> solids to be conceived of as Platonic? And are they
missing out if they<br>
>> don't? Do they have their own Edwin Abbot Abbot?
And what would the<br>
>> Cheela <<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg</a>>
say?<br>
>> ><br>
>> > My dog and the rock squirrels he chases want to
know... so do the cholla<br>
>> cactus fruits/segments they hoard in their nests!<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Mumble,<br>
>> ><br>
>> > - Steve<br>
>> ><br>
>> > On 2/16/23 5:37 AM, Santafe wrote:<br>
>> >> It’s the tiniest and most idiosyncratic take
on this question, but<br>
>> FWIW, here:<br>
>> >> <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1520752113" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1520752113</a><br>
>> >><br>
>> >> I actually think that all of what Nick says
below is a perfectly good<br>
>> draft of a POV.<br>
>> >><br>
>> >> As to whether animals “have” categories:
Spend time with a dog.<br>
>> Doesn’t take very much time. Their interest in
conspecifics is (ahem)<br>
>> categorically different from their interest in
people, different than to<br>
>> squirrels, different than to cats, different than to
snakes.<br>
>> >><br>
>> >> For me to even say that seems like cueing a
narcissism of small<br>
>> differences, when overwhelmingly, their behavior is
structured around<br>
>> categories, as is everyone else’s. Squirrels don’t
mistake acorns for<br>
>> birds of prey. Or for the tree limbs and house roofs
one can jump onto.<br>
>> Or for other squirrels. It’s all categories.
Behavior is an operation on<br>
>> categories.<br>
>> >><br>
>> >> I found it interesting that you invoked
“nouns” as a framework that is<br>
>> helpful but sometimes obstructive. One might just
have said “words”. This<br>
>> is interesting to me already, because my syntactician
friends will tell you<br>
>> that a noun is not, as we were taught as children, a
“word for a person,<br>
>> place, or thing”, but rather a “word in a language
that transforms as nouns<br>
>> transform in that language”, which is a bit of an
obfuscation, since they<br>
>> do have in common that they are in some way
“object-words”. But from the<br>
>> polysemy and synonymy perspective, we see that
“meanings” cross the<br>
>> noun-verb syntactic distinction quite frequently for
some categories.<br>
>> Eye/see, ear/hear, moon/shine, and stuff like that.
My typologist friends<br>
>> tell me that is common but particular to some
meanings much more than<br>
>> others.<br>
>> >><br>
>> >> Another fun thing I was told by Ted Chiang a
few months ago, which I<br>
>> was amazed I had not heard from linguists, and still
want to hold in<br>
>> reserve until I can check it further. He says that
languages without<br>
>> written forms do not have a word for “word”. If
true, that seems very<br>
>> interesting and important. If Chiang believes it to
be true, it is<br>
>> probably already a strong enough regularity to be
more-or-less true, and<br>
>> thus still interesting and important.<br>
>> >><br>
>> >> Eric<br>
>> >><br>
>> >>> On Feb 15, 2023, at 1:19 PM,<<a href="mailto:thompnickson2@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">thompnickson2@gmail.com</a>>
<<br>
>> <a href="mailto:thompnickson2@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">thompnickson2@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
>> >>><br>
>> >>> FWiW, I willmake every effort to arrive
fed to Thuam by 10.30<br>
>> Mountain. I want to hear the experts among you hold
forth on WTF a<br>
>> cateogory actually IS. I am thinking (duh) that a
category is a more or<br>
>> less diffuse node in a network of associations
(signs, if you must). Hence<br>
>> they constitute a vast table of what goes with what,
what is predictable<br>
>> from what, etc. This accommodates “family
resemblance” quite nicely. Do<br>
>> I think animals have categories, in this sense,
ABSOLUTELY EFFING YES. Does<br>
>> this make me a (shudder) nominalist? I hope not.<br>
>> >>> Words…nouns in particular… confuse this
category business. Words<br>
>> place constraints on how vague these nodes can be.
They impose on the<br>
>> network constraints to which it is ill suited. True,
the more my<br>
>> associations with “horse” line up with your
associations with “horse”, the<br>
>> more true the horse seems. Following Peirce, I would
say that where our<br>
>> nodes increasingly correspond with increasing shared
experience, we have<br>
>> evidence ot the (ultimate) truth of the nodes, their
“reality” in Peirce’s<br>
>> terms. Here is where I am striving to hang on to
Peirce’s realism.<br>
>> >>> The reason I want the geeks to
participate tomorrow is that I keep<br>
>> thinking of a semantic webby thing that Steve devised
for the Institute<br>
>> about a decade ago. Now a semantic web would be a
kind of metaphor for an<br>
>> associative web; don’t associate with other words in
exactly the same<br>
>> manner in which experiences associate with other
experiences. Still, I<br>
>> think the metaphor is interesting. Also, I am kind
of re-interested in my<br>
>> “authorial voice”, how much it operates like cbt.<br>
>> >>><br>
>> >>> <br>
-- <br>
glen ⛧<br>
<br>
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