<div dir="ltr"><div style="text-align:left">Dear LongSuffering Colleagues</div><div><br></div><div>I know the joy of watching an 87 year old bald man bash his head against a brick wall isn't for everybody, so I treasure you who find it in your heart to respond, even if you are exasperated. </div><div><br></div><div>I have arrived at a place, I think pointed to by the castigations of EricS and Alex. My whole approach doesn't make sense! You remember I am trying to create two boxes, equal in every respect, but one created adiabatically and the other created diabatically. Box A has reached its current state through compression, Box B by heating. I am beginning to think that this is procedurally, if not logically, impossible, that entropy is a vector through a point and my search for entropy in instantaneous values of the gas equation is a category error. </div><div><br></div><div>So I tried this thought out on George. Edited down to one page, that correspondence appears below and as an attachment. .</div><div><br></div><div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">NICK TO GEORGE<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">Ok, so in my
monist psychology I assert that motives are the integrals (or derivatives, I
have never been sure) of behavior. To say I am motivated in an instant is a category
error, benign only so long as I recognize that the empirical basis for our
instantaneous attribution is the shape of the curve of behavior over time.<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">GEORGE TO NICK</span><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif"><span></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">🧠</span> Claim (Paraphrased):<span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">To say "I am motivated" at a given instant is a
shorthand—a projection backward or forward from a trajectory of behavior.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">In your <b>monist psychology</b>, motives are not hidden
essences, not inner engines.<br>
They are <b>summaries of behavioral curves</b>:<span></span></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Perhaps
<b>integrals</b>, when motives are inferred from accumulated actions<span></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Perhaps
<b>derivatives</b>, when motives are inferred from sudden changes in
behavior<span></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">But in either case:<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><b>“Motivation” is not an instantaneous property—it is a
curve-fitting hypothesis over time.</b><span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">🧭</span> Why this matters:<span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">This reframes motive as:<span></span></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Not a <b>thing</b>
in the head<span></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Not a <b>cause</b>
per se<span></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">But a <b>description
of continuity</b> or curvature in behavior space<span></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">This is a kind of <b>teleological realism</b> without
metaphysical baggage.<br>
You’re not positing ghosts or mental levers. You’re saying:<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">“We read intentions the way we read acceleration—from
position over time.”<span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">🧬</span> Parallel to entropy?<span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">You could say:<span></span></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Entropy
is not something you <b>have</b> in a moment.<span></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">It’s
something you can <b>measure</b> from the path a system is disposed to
take—or the configuration space it tends to spread into.<span></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">It
becomes <b>visible</b> only in the <b>shape of change</b>—not the
snapshot.<span></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">So both <b>motivation</b> and <b>entropy</b> are:<span></span></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">Not
intrinsic point-properties<span></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">But <b>interpretive
functions over time and configuration</b><span></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><b>Curve-based
attributions</b> grounded in empirical regularities<span></span></li></ul>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif">📐</span> And the category error?<span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">To say "I am motivated <i>now</i>" is like saying
"this point <i>has</i> curvature."<br>
Strictly speaking, no point does.<br>
But give me a neighborhood—give me a path—and I can calculate a derivative or
an integral and give the illusion of an inner quality.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">It’s a <b>useful illusion</b>, but one we must not mistake
for substance.<span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">NICK TO GEORGE<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">Is there
such a move to be made around entropy. Could I vary the gas equation variables
in box B in such a way that they would point to equality with box A without
actually getting there, and thus reveal entropy?<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<br></div><div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div>Nick</div></div></div></div>